Burning Fiction

"Paradigm Shift"

An elderly man and a 6-year-old boy walk side by side. They are dressed in matching garb: lightweight breathable silver jumpsuits and silver goggles. The old man's outfit also has a cape. This makes the pair look like an intergenerational (intergalactic!) superhero duo. They both have long-ish hair, the real color of which is hard to determine due to the fine dust that coats it. As they walk, the boy looks up at the man and says: "Grampa? Would you tell me about when you were a kid, back when they used to burn the man?"

"Well... okay," Grampa clears his throat, "When I was a young man, Black Rock City was only here for one week out of the year."

"That's all?" asks the boy.

"Yep. It was a very special week, full of celebration and meditation, art and humor and all kinds of fun. The climax of the week came on the second to last night, when the giant man would be burned down, and we'd all dance in the light of the fire. A day or two later, we'd pack up all our stuff and split, taking care to leave no trace that we'd ever even been here."

"Where did everybody go?"

"Well, back then there were lots of other places where we all lived. We had a much larger society, which we called 'Default World' and we Burners came from our various homes in all different corners of Default World to be here. But that larger society had many problems. Many problems which we don't have now."

"What kinds of problems?"

"Oh... all kinds. People didn't know how to share--"

"WHAT?! But HOW--"

"I know, I know it sounds crazy. And in many ways it was. Default World was marked by insanity in almost every aspect of daily life. Since people didn't know how to share, there was great competition for resources, everything from food and shelter to land and energy."

"Energy? But that's the easiest thing in the world for everyone to get! Why would anyone compete for something that's free and unlimited?"

"That's a little complicated, but back then, most people didn't bother to harness the wind and the sun the way we do now. We can generate much more electricity than we'll ever need just from those two sources, but we happen to be living in a very sunny, very windy place!"

"That's for sure!" says the boy.

"Without generating energy from the wind and the sun, most people got their energy from what we called 'fossil fuels.' There used to be this black oil that came out of the ground which could be burned to generate heat, electricity and to make fuel for all sorts of vehicles. It was also used to make plastic."

"Hahah... nobody MAKES plastic! We just harvest and recycle it!"

"Yes, but where do you think it all came from originally? Someone had to make it."

"Ohhh..."

"So with oil from the ground being used for so many things that people depended on so much, it became the most valued resource in the world. But it wasn't like the sun and the wind. It wasn't unlimited. And by the time I was your age, we were already running out of it."

"What happened?"

"As supplies got smaller and smaller, and demand for oil got bigger and bigger, people started fighting over what was still left in the ground. Actual wars were fought over it!"

"What are... worz?"

"Oh, right... you wouldn't know about them, would you. Well, a war was a terrible thing in which large numbers of people would try to kill large numbers of other people."

"People tried to kill each other?!"

"Sad but true. It was not a very good time for humanity."

"I'll say!"

"The oil war era was a painful and difficult time for many, but we Burners kept right on doing our thing, coming out here to the desert to celebrate and remind ourselves that nothing lasts forever. I think our attitude and yearly pilgrimages helped prepare us for the big changes that were to come."

"What sorts of changes grampa?"

"Well, things went roughly like this... after 8 years of the worst leadership the modern default world had ever known, the people elected a new leader, a very nice man who was very smart and who promised positive change. And things did start to change for the better, surprisingly quickly. It was remarkable to see the entire mindset of the United States of America shift."

"United States of America?"

"That was the name of the country that used to span the continent we're standing on."

"The WHOLE CONTINENT!?"

"The whole thing."

"Wow!"

"Yeah, it was pretty impressive for a while there. And even though the new leadership accomplished a great deal during its first four-year term in office, and even though the overwhelming majority of people around the entire planet were happy with the changes that were taking place, there still were a few people who wanted things to continue the way they had been going under the bad leadership."

"Really? Why?!"

"Because they were bad, greedy people. We used to call them 'motherfuckers' or 'assholes.'"

"Haha! Assholes! That's funny. I have an asshole."

"Yes you do. And what comes out of it every day?"

"Poop!"

"And what is poop like?"

"It smells BAD!"

"Which is exactly like everything that came out of the people we used to call assholes."

"Haha! Yucky."

"You said it. Well, when the next election rolled around, the bad people decided to try a very mean thing to gain support for the leader they wanted to install in power."

"What did they do?!"

"Well, they wanted to make it seem like the other leader, the nice smart one, wasn't any good at protecting the country from enemies, so they waited until his political party was having a big convention, and they unleashed a terrorist attack on the city that was hosting the convention."

"What's a terrorist attack?"

"Well, it was a kind of fighting that was meant to scare people, so that you could get them to do what you wanted. Most people thought terrorists were a real threat who came from far away places, but it turns out the worst terrorists were just sneaky bad people in our own country who only made it SEEM like their attacks were done by the far away people. Then after the attacks, they said 'You see! We told you there were still great dangers! You need to put OUR guy in power or else there will surely be more terrorist attacks!'"

"But THEY were the ones doing the attacks!"

"Of course. But not that many people could tell. Most people thought it was the far away people doing them. Unfortunately, the bad people chose a form of attack that hadn't been tried before, because they figured it would be extra scary, and things kinda got out of hand."

"What did they do?!"

"They released a highly contagious disease into a city. This was where the good man's convention was taking place, remember?"

"I remember."

"A few people in that city died right away. It was terrible."

"Whoa. Were people scared?"

"Yes. Very. The disease was supposed to kill people very quickly, and run its course. But the bad men who created it made some mistakes, and most people carried the disease for a couple days without knowing they had it before dying of it themselves. Since people had come from all over the country for the good man's convention, when the convention was over, they brought it back with them to every part of this land. People started dying everywhere. It was so terrible that eventually, one of the bad men responsible for the original plan revealed the truth about what was going on, in the hopes that it might make it possible for people to figure out how to stop the disease. But by then it was too late. Many people had already carried the disease to other countries. It spread quickly all over default world. Whole populations were wiped out as the disease quickly ran through its life-cycle."

"How did we survive?"

"It all came down to good timing, really."

"What do you mean?"

"The Democratic National Convention of 2012, took place at the same time as the first few days of the Burning Man festival that year. When the news broke that people were dying in every single state of what had been the United States of America, it was Saturday morning. That night, when everybody gathered at the giant man, which was the only time when everyone at the festival would all be in one place, instead of burning the man down, an announcement was made. The news about the disease affecting the rest of the country was revealed. The organizers of the festival then suggested that people stay in the desert for a few more days, to wait and see what would happen. We never did burn the man that year, or any time after that, to this day."

"Did people stay here?"

"Most of us did. A few felt they had to go, to return to loved ones, or try to help out at hospitals. But a strong feeling passed through the entire community that we were supposed to stay right here and wait. It was very difficult at first."

"Because you were scared?"

"Well, yes. Nobody knew if the disease would be able to reach us out here. But also difficult because in those days, Black Rock City was only meant to be temporary. Fortunately, by then, we had developed some centralized solar and wind power for the city, and many Burners either hooked into it or had their own solar and wind generators. Biodiesel was also big at the time. Water was scarce, of course, but a miraculous thing happened."

"What?"

"It rained."

"And you collected the rainwater?"

"Smart boy. We sure did. We collected it in every kind of container you can imagine. The rainwater kept us going long enough to get word from the outside world that the disease had run its course. There were small pockets of survivors, mostly in remote places. All major cities had been decimated, and most suburban areas too. The plague had spread like wildfire, but once it ran out of fuel, or victims, or hosts, it just sort of burned itself out. That was the first major change."

"There were more changes?"

"Well sure. With so many people killed off so quickly, those of us who survived couldn't go back to the lives we were used to. There was no economy, there was no industry. Even though it soon became safe to go back to the cities and towns of default world from a disease standpoint, in many many places the survivors of the plague turned to violence, and lots more deaths occurred. So we stayed put out here in the desert for a little longer, monitoring the situation via radio and internet. Eventually those sources of information fell silent. Gradually, we sent expeditions out into the surrounding areas to find out what was left of the world we had once known and hopefully bring back news and supplies. When they returned, they came back with food, water, some medical supplies, some good drugs and even some composting toilets."

"Like the ones we use today?"

"Almost the same! Whenever there was news of interest to every Burner, we'd all gather around the man, to hear the announcements--"

"That's what we do!"

"That was when the tradition started. So we gathered to hear what the expeditions that returned had to tell us, and we learned all about the devastation of default world. But they also said it was relatively safe to move freely about, as long as we had vehicles that could run off of either electricity, or vegetable oil. For most of us, this meant our range of travel was fairly limited, so we knew it would be difficult to return to where we'd come from even if we had wanted to, even if there had been anyone left in those places. So we organized many supply runs, and prioritized the things we knew we'd need most. After food and water, more composting toilets was first on the list! Then came the materials we needed to start building the greenhouses. It was the beginning of our long-term settlement here and the whole society you know. Some people did decide to try their luck back out in default world. We never heard from any of them again. Interestingly, the theme of that year's Burning Man festival was 'Paradigm Shift.'"

"What does that mean?"

"A big change in the way things are."

"Oh."

[to be continued]

Rhyme Beyond Reason

Mark Twain once said, "History doesn't repeat itself... it rhymes."

That dude was so fucking cool.

Thought for the day. Enjoy.








Oh, okay, I'll riff a bit on the topic...

In my own life, I've noticed certain rhymes. I'll have an experience, and then shortly afterward I'll have an extremely similar, but much higher-stakes version of the experience. This type of thing was happening over and over again, in all sorts of striking and obvious ways, and I came to call the phenomenon the "rehearsal - performance effect." For example...

One time, shortly after I moved into the city, I signed up to take bass-guitar lessons from the Sam Ash music school. You signed up and paid for a block of four lessons at a time which were $35 each, so I had to shell out a total of $140. A little sad to say, but that was actually a heckuva lot of money to me at the time. So after the first lesson, when I realized that I probably wasn't going to get much out of the lessons because the bass teacher kinda just wanted to hang out and be my pal, I figured I'd better cut my losses, cancel the rest of the lessons and get my money back for the unused remainder. I'd still be out the $35, but at least I'd recover $105.

That Saturday, I went on over to Sam Ash to the office where I paid for the lessons originally, but they were only open for a few hours during the afternoon. I was there about 45 minutes too early. To kill the time, I walked a couple blocks over to Burger Heaven and sat down at the counter for lunch. I figured, I was about to get $105 dollars back, so I could splurge on a very delicious burger and especially good fries. (Oh such good fries -- lord how I miss french fries.)

I ate my food, looked at the time, and sure enough, I'd killed the requisite amount. I left a tip on the counter, grabbed the check and went to the register by the door to pay. When the lovely young woman behind the cash register gave me my change, she accidentally gave me an extra 75 cents. For a tiny fraction of a second, I considered just pocketing it, because I could always use extra money even if only 75 cents, some more quarters for the laundromat were always convenient to have on hand, and who would notice? But I decided to do the right thing, saying, "Um, you gave me too much change. Here--" as I handed her back the three quarters.

At first she was a little stunned, and then she was so incredibly grateful that you'd have thought I'd just saved her child from a burning building. I thought she was going to hug me. I walked out of there 75 cents "poorer," but feeling like a million bucks. Off I went to the Sam and the Ash.

A few minutes later, I got to their office and it was open. I went in, explained my situation and the lovely young woman behind the desk figured out what to do. I guess they didn't get many requests for money back on the lessons, or canceling the lessons, or probably even taking lessons in the first place. It all seemed a bit makeshift up in there. Still, after a few moments, she handed me a check for the full amount. For the full $140. I was only supposed to get $105 back.

An extra 75 cents was easy to return (and I'd even contemplated keeping that), but I really really could've used an extra 35 bucks! It was like the universe was watching me... I mean, I really felt as if I was in the presence of some kind of guiding intelligence. It was saying: Okay man... you did well on the little pop-quiz, but now let's see how you do on an exam when it really counts.

I looked down at the check in my hands, and just smiled. I knew I was going to give her the money back, and I knew she'd be shocked by my doing so. It was already starting to feel good, so I took my time and savored the moment. And when I handed the check back to her, explaining that she'd over-paid me by $35, the look of astonishment on her face was worth so much more than the money. She tore up that check, wrote me a new one for the proper, lesser amount, and as she handed that one to me I thought she was going to not only hug but kiss me as well -- which would've been totally great as I remember her being a super-cute redhead (I kinda have a thing for redheads). I probably should've asked her out right then, and if I'd only had a little extra cash, say $35 bucks for a few beers, I totally would've. Just kidding. I didn't really think to ask her out until I was half-way home because I was too busy being all awed by the universe and pleased with myself for having actually done something right.

Here's another, much much weirder example of an experience rhyme (a morally neutral one this time)...

A few years ago, a friend of mine named Mike was in possession of an old, beat up 1973 Dodge Dart "Swinger" which was a sporty muscle car of the era, prized for its legendarily indestructible "slant-6" engine. And yes, the engine of this car was still in great working condition, even though the rest of the car was rusting through and beat half-way to hell. The few times I ever took it out, the thing was actually really fun to drive, especially around town, and I must say... I looked (and felt) great in it. And despite how beat up it was (or maybe because of how beat up it was) I got great approving looks from girls as I drove past.

Mike got a job out in LA, and left the car in my charge. As cool as it was, I almost never even touched it, much less actually used it. Once in an extremely rare while I'd drive it a short distance. Whatever.

At some point, another friend, Daniel, was shooting an indie-film and needed a beat up antique car. He asked if he could borrow the Dart for a day. I said yes.

He and his crew came and got the keys, took the car, did their thing, returned it, everything was fine.

Two days later, I find myself heading upstate with Jay and Robert to do acid (my first acid trip, actually). Jay was driving us in his car, and he knew a lovely little spot out in the middle of the woods by a completely remote secluded pond. A perfect setting on a perfect day for a very pleasant psychedelic experience.

To get to the actual spot, we pull off the highway, onto a local road for a bit. Pull off the local road onto a smaller country road. Pull off that onto a dirt road, and eventually park in a clearing. Then we walk a fair distance on a little dirt footpath down to this pond. We're really in the middle of nowhere. No other people for miles around.

The acid trip is going great, but eventually we get thirsty and realize we left the bottles of water back in the trunk of the car. I volunteer to go get them.

I walk back up the dirt path, and as I get closer to the clearing where Jay's car is, I see other people, doing some sort of something in an organized-looking manner. I don't pay much attention to them, since I'm thirsty and I'm on mission of grave importance (what with my cohorts relying on me for a basic survival need) and since I'm tripping my face off and all. I just keep walking and soon enough, I get to the car, get the water, drink some and start back down the path to the pond.

As I pass back by the group of people, I can see that it's a film shoot or a photo shoot or something. There are a couple guys with camera gear, some assistant-looking types holding things, and in the center of the activity is a gorgeous willowy blond model wearing a wispy floral-ish dress, draping herself on the hood of an incredible mint-condition classic ice-blue convertible from the late 50's early 60's from the looks/styling of it. I wish I knew exactly what the car was, because it may have been more beautiful than the girl. It was really just fucking perfect.

Why these people had come up to the middle of these particular woods to get this shot I couldn't say.

Off to the other side of the dirt path from where the work was happening, were the crew's support vehicles: a Jeep Cherokee and Lexus SUV. There was a young woman sitting in the passenger seat of the Lexus, reading a book or a magazine, with the windows rolled down. Since she clearly wasn't busy, I asked her what was going on. She said this was a fashion shoot, that they'd driven up from Manhattan. I asked her what her part was in the proceedings and she said that she was the one who had supplied the antique car.

I said,"Oh, nice car. Well, take care." If I hadn't been tripping, I might've lingered and asked a few more questions. But instead, I just continued down the path, back to my friends, Gunga Din bearing water. Then it hit me...

Two days earlier, I'd supplied an antique car to a film shoot. Now, here, in this extremely remote and unlikely place, I encounter a bunch of people and the only one I talk to is the one who supplied an antique car to a photo shoot. And just like other rhyming experiences, the second one was taking place on a much "higher level" than the first one. Nothing against Daniel or the indie film he made, and nothing against the old Dodge Dart, but every aspect of this professional fashion thing was obviously on a whole 'nother plane.

So, that was weird.

The rehearsal/performance rhyming experiences with a moral component are kind of easy to see meaning in. But that antique car coincidence was just fucking freaky. Of all the places they could've gone, to find a bunch of trees to shoot in, they chose this particular crazy out-of-the-way place, where we just happened to be tripping balls, and of the three of us, I was the one who went for the water and thus was the only one who encountered them, and of all their people, the only one I interacted with was the rhyme.

How does that happen? Why does that happen? What does it mean?

Maybe it's just the Universe's way of reminding us to be impressed.

Wanted

Saw a movie last night which I wasn't actually interested in seeing at all, and it turned out to be surprisingly good. I kinda want to go right back and see it again.

Like Zombie Strippers, the movie Wanted is a shining example of what may be my favorite type of movie these days: smart, masquerading as stoopid. Movies in this category are better than plain stoopid movies that are popular because they are truly just stoopid and have almost nothing worthwhile to say but do have lots of Lowest Common Denominator appeal. They are also better than those smart movies which might say a great deal, but will only ever reach a small audience of people who already understand and agree with what is being said--preaching to the choir doesn't help any of us. (Not that those are the only other film options, of course.)

I will say, it is unfortunate that in order to accomplish this, Wanted does have to resort to glorifying (even beautifying) hyper-violent gun-play, which, in my opinion, is the last thing the American mass-mind needs more of these days. But it pushes it so far into the realm of impossibility that it's hard to imagine anyone taking it seriously, and the pure spectacle is just fucking fun to watch. And once you get past that, the movie is genuinely inspired. It also makes no bones about the fact that it is trying to inspire, speaking directly to those of us who find ourselves working in, say, boring cubicle jobs, while secretly (or openly) feeling like we're meant for something greater and perhaps more beneficial, both to ourselves and to society. (Or at least, something more interesting.)

Okay, I admit it. It speaks to me. Maybe there are other people who it speaks to, I don't know, but there are a few little moments during the film that made me feel like a child being lectured by a stern but well-meaning parent. And not in a subtle way either. Utterly, intentionally, obvious. It made me feel kinda paranoid (totally paranoid), like, "Do the film-makers know me?! Have they been spying on me? Damn! I'm kinda creeped out right now, though maybe I should be grateful for all the effort they made on my behalf, I mean, a feature length action movie is a serious undertaking just to try to motivate me or get a few positive messages into my thick skull. Think of the man-hours!"

And I wasn't even stoned when I saw it!

If I had been stoned, I might still be too creeped out to write this.

But for those of you who do get stoned, and do work in a boring cubicle job and do feel like you're meant for something bigger and better, I whole-heartedly recommend smoking a big fat bowl, and seeing this movie on a big fat screen. But don't see it at the Loews on 34th st., because the sound kept going in and out which was really annoying and a couple of ladies in the row ahead of me kept talking back to the screen, especially when they were surprised by the things that weren't surprising, like: "Oh my god! He killed him!"

(Yeah. He's gonna kill lots of people. It's that kind of movie. Oh... maybe -- I'm sorry -- have you not... um... is this your first movie? Ah. That explains it. Yes, in American movies, people kill lots of other people. Lots and lots of them. Lots of killing. Oh, and the people running around on the big rectangle can't actually hear anything you tell them about what to look out for, or who might have a knife, because, you see... they aren't really there.)

Now, I know intellectually that there are plenty of other, well, guys mostly, who probably need an entertaining ass-kicking even more than I do. But that doesn't make it feel like this movie was any less specifically aimed at me. Personally.

Back when I still smoked pot, I had that feeling, much more strongly, about many things. Several tracks off a Bjork record. Almost all of OK Computer by Radiohead. The South Park movie. Hate comics. Hey Jude. The lyrics to just about every song in the entire set of a friend's brother's band performing at sidewalk cafe back in '97. The graffiti on the wall of the men's room at the Lakeside Lounge. The conversations of total strangers passing me on the street/in the park/anywhere. WBAI. Newspaper headlines.

Holy ill-communication Batman!

Though, I gotta say, the messages from all these sources weren't negative or menacing or hurtful in any way. In fact, most of them were either trying to help or just playfully mock me. I really shouldn't complain. I just didn't like the fact that I was receiving "messages" at all. Leave me alone! I just wanna get high! I don't want to be part of some creepy borg/hive mind, even if it does want to help me! It's amazing I kept smoking pot as long as I did. (I attribute that to the memory-erasing aspect of heavy pot-use. I kept forgetting that pot would make me feel like everything around me was communicating with me in metaphorical double-speak underneath the obvious surface meanings, and only I would even notice the deeper-level communiques because they only applied to me.)

Interestingly, most of said communiques seemed to be telling me I needed to do more fucking.

Some said I needed to express my creativity more.

Some of them were pleading with me to slow-down my pot smoking. And when I ignored those particular warnings, they gradually became sterner and more blunt, instead demanding that I stop or else suffer severe loss of various faculties, mental, physical and spiritual, which I both needed and enjoyed.

Hahah!

(I'm not even kidding.)

Of course, those messages are all things that my own subconscious would want me to become consciously aware of (and to heed). But on the deepest level, the subconscious mind of the individual is a part of/one with the collective consciousness of everyone/everything. And pot is a mind-expanding drug. A mild psychedelic. The word "psychedelic" literally means "mind-manifesting" as in: it can help you witness the contents of your own mind. The higher the dose, the deeper into "mind" it reaches, until it hits the place where your mind and the mind of, you know, the cosmos or some shit, are one and the same. In order to provide a nifty external sensory showcase of your own mind to symbolically or poetically or literally reflect it back to you, the Universal Mind could certainly employ the aid of something like the dinner conversation of the party at the next table, or a radio show, or Radiohead. You think there's anything beyond the reach of The Universe?

But I had trouble taking advice from, like, my own mom. And, lo! I found myself attempting to ignore, or even rebel against, The Universe!

This, of course, makes me a colossal idiot.

It also makes me just like countless other humans. Wheeee!

Whoa. I wasn't expecting to go off on that tangent when I sat down to write this.

In conclusion, Wanted is a fun movie, especially if you like looking at Angelina Jolie's perfect face. The end.

The Cover

Am I the only one who thinks Michelle Obama looks totally hot as depicted on the controversial cover of the New Yorker magazine?

Know Your Enemy

As a New York City bicycle-rider, I find I have a few natural enemies. Many bike riders feel that taxicabs are their most dangerous adversaries. In my area (Times Sq.) I find that slow-moving hordes of over-stuffed mid-western tourists are far more annoying, if not actually more dangerous. I've tried to develop an understanding with the cabs. Though, occasionally I do see one execute a maneuver so recklessly insane I find myself goggle-eyed cartoon double-taking at it. Like... wait--was that REAL? Did that guy really just thread the needle between those two baby-carriage pushing pregnant women at 50 mph?!? Holy shit! (I mean, it's okay for me to do that, but I'm only going 20 mph, am much narrower and I don't weigh two tons.)

I know it probably gets tiresome reading the posts wherein I relentlessly advocate for bike-riding. As my man Jon in Dallas pointed out, I'm lucky, living in NYC, because I CAN get from place to place on a bike. Almost any other city, that just ain't possible. He also mentioned that most other places, a guy simply can't get laid unless he can pick the girl up for their date in a car with at least one passenger seat. Right. He concluded artfully, saying that if it were a choice between driving and getting a hummer, or having neither...

So, right... I should probably cut our less-fortunate neighbors a little slack. But this is clearly a case where a trait that favors individual reproductive success, kills off the species as a whole. Like the northern big-horned elk...

Apparently, there was this particular species of elk, northern elk, that grew great racks of antlers, and the males who enjoyed the greatest reproductive attentions of the females were the ones who grew the BIGGEST antlers. So every generation, the offspring were likely to grow ever larger racks of antlers, until eventually, the antlers were so big that the elk couldn't lift their heads. Within a little more than one generation, they were gone. Completely extinct.

Our SUV's are the antlers of our demise.

Still, I'm a realist. I know that even here in Manhattan, where it is more than possible to get everywhere I ever need to go on a bicycle, it is still occasionally preferable to do the unspeakable... to bow to the enemy and {gasp} take a cab. You're going out for a night on the town, perhaps a certain amount of swank will be involved, you have to dress well, she especially, and hers is an expensive killer outfit, and maybe it's hot and humid out, or maybe it starts to rain. You ain't riding a bike under those circumstances. No way, no how.

But thanks to a surprisingly simple idea, it is now possible to significantly reduce the badness of taking a cab! You just have to plan ahead a little bit.

Oh.

Plan ahead?

Well... that opts me out.

Thank goodness I don't ever do anything swanky (and that I've attached fenders to my bike to keep the rain-puddles from making a silly-looking line of grimy wetness up my back).

Silence!!

Okay... now there's a new vacation possibility front-runner. A 10-day silent meditation retreat. Not exactly the best place to get laid, but I think it'll do me a world of good. Maybe two worlds.

I'm just gonna go up to a lovely idyllic setting, and stop thinking about anything for 10 whole days. I feel more relaxed already just imagining it.

all things in moderation

Partied all night last night.

Body not super thrilled about it today. Gonna be a short post.

Tried to go out NOT drinking. Only had club soda at Margulies' place. Only had club soda at the bar. Only had a half a cup of coffee at the first loft. Found second loft overrun with very gorgeous women from all over the world. Started immediately drinking gin. But no cups or glasses so I ended up drinking out of the glass cover of a light-fixture. Yeah... I'm really good at the whole "not drinking" thing.

Only slept about two hours.

I know I neglected this blog yesterday, and to my legions of loyal fans out there I apologize with every grandiose fiber of my being, but I'm in no position to really make it up to you today either, what with my brain not all um... working good. Um... yeah. Not brain's fault.

I think my fridge doesn't keep things cold enough. What are the odds that my landlord will replace/fix it?

um...

Brain hurting. I'm going to forage for food now.

Sorry for the lameness.

hope you had fun this weekend too.

bye for now

Gonna Be Harder Than I Thought

Remember how I said I wanted to give up the alcohol completely?

Well thanks to those lousy stinking Puritans who infected this continent with their idiotically lame morals, it is just stupidly difficult to get laid without one or more of the relevant parties being drunk. I knew there was a reason to loathe those accursed Puritans.

I've never traveled much. I've never been outside of NAFTA's jurisdiction. Never really had the urge. But now I'm seriously curious about what it would be like to try getting laid in a country that wasn't founded by completely uptight assholes. And with the vacation time I've accrued...

So, of the foreign places I'd like to go get laid in, several come immediately to mind... India, Israel, France, Black Rock City, Holland, Denmark, Romania and maybe Australia.

Partly due to this really wacky article, and partly due to the fact that all my friends who have been there wax poetic about the hotness of Israeli girls, I'm actually leaning toward Israel. I can hardly believe it myself.

But thanks to assholes again, the price of oil is so high that a flight to Israel costs more than the gross national product of Israel.

Is there a way I could ride my bike to Israel?

Respect

A little while ago, I wrote about seeing Bill Clinton speak at Radio City.

About a week prior to that, there was a Moth Slam with the theme "Respect" which inspired a story that I would've told a very short version of had my name been picked...

Little kids are generally pretty open and trusting. I was especially so. I always just assumed the best of people. I mean, the adults in my life were always loving, caring, good and true, protectors, providers and educators. I never encountered physical violence. My needs were always met. I had it pretty darn good, so I just took it for granted that people were honest and nice and the world was "the right way." Obviously, that innocence couldn't last forever, and I think I actually recall the exact moment when it suffered its first blow. It was a minor one in the grand scheme of things, but it was the seed...

My third grade teacher was a kindly woman about 60 years old, who had a reputation among the school kids for being "the best teacher in the school!" This had little to do with her ability to teach math and more to do with the sorts of things that mattered to 8-year-olds: she was fun. She turned almost all her lessons into games, or art-projects, or just wacky special "activities." She really was creative and she clearly loved us. And you couldn't help but love her back. After all, being in her class was like constant play-time! When the weather was nice, we'd go outside and she'd teach us these crazy games she'd invented, most of which made use of that school-yard staple big red rubber ball. The only one I remember was "Kickball-basketball" which actually was a bizarre mash-up of the two normally separate games. And somehow, in the midst of all the goofiness, I'm sure she did manage to expose us to the required 3rd-grade curriculum, as boring as that must've been for her.

One day, a few months into the school year, she was writing something on the chalkboard, and I thought I noticed a misspelled word. The word "challenge." Now, given the fact that she was the teacher and teachers know how to spell words, plus the fact that she was always turning everything into little games, I figured her misspelling of the word 'challenge' was intentional and must have been a challenge to see if we would notice. So I raised my hand and pointed it out.

She played along, pretending not to know what I was talking about. "Oh really? A word is spelled wrong you say? Which one?" She was obviously setting me up for the win, and I was actually kind of excited as I told her which word it was, pleased and proud that I was the one who figured out this latest little puzzle of hers. I expected her to respond with something like "Very good! You figured it out!" But instead, she said that no, the word was correct, and that I was making a mistake.

Uh?

I really thought I was right and I persisted, but she still said I was wrong. Baffling! It seemed a teacher was intentionally trying to convince us of something incorrect. How can that be? Doesn't that go against the laws of physics or something? Maybe I was wrong after all. But I really could've sworn... Still, she was the teacher, and I was just a little kid. What did I know?

I knew how to spell the freakin' word "challenge" is what I knew, so I started reaching for my dictionary, just to make sure. Seeing this, she said "Yes, everybody, why don't we take this opportunity to look it up in our dictionaries..."

And when everyone's dictionary ended up siding with me on the matter, she reached for the eraser, and fixed the word on the blackboard. And then never called on or spoke to me again for the rest of the school year.

She only gave me the cold shoulder, the occasional frown and some active hostility a few times (after which she always made a point of being extra sickly sweet to the very next student she had to interact with). I guess spending her entire adult life with 3rd-graders, she'd never felt the need to be subtle. She'd obviously been embarrassed by what had happened, but it's not like I'd set out to embarrass her intentionally. I mean, come on... really? An experienced professional school teacher is gonna hold a grudge against a freakin' 8-year-old? For a whole school-year? For not even doing anything! For being a good proofreader! What? The? Fuck?

I gotta say, it did become a pretty miserable year for me, having to sit in that formerly fun classroom, now unable to interact with my teacher in any remotely normal way.

(Pick the one best answer...)

What was 8-year-old Jon supposed to learn from the experience described above?
A) To respect one's elders
B) Not to correct the mistakes of an elder
C) Despite being in positions of authority, adults are only human, have feelings and sometimes make mistakes. Don't take it personally if they disappoint you.
D) Adults cannot be trusted and might not deserve respect.
E) Kill, kill, kill!

Now, it's not like slogging through that year just flipped a switch inside my brain and I instantly lost all respect for authority. But it subconsciously got the ball rolling.

After that, I started noticing more ways in which I felt I couldn't trust "the man." The ball kept picking up steam. I remember consciously deciding that the institution of public school itself was completely suspect -- not really geared toward enriching the lives of students, but merely conditioning them to become docile consumer-worker-drones later in life. I was maybe 12 years old by then.

Puberty hit and I found I could believe less and less of what the adults around me were saying. My disrespect snowballed. I also couldn't believe Americans were stupid enough to vote for the skin-puppet Ronald Reagan. I couldn't believe the shit I was being taught in the religious education (Hebrew School) classes I was forced to take, leading up to my Bar Mitzvah. I lost respect for my country and my family and my religion and whatever else you got.

My personal avalanche continued to slide. I was a stubborn unreachable kid. I couldn't take anybody's word for anything and thus had to learn everything for myself... always the hard way. The conclusions I came to were usually pretty hasty (surly arrogant teenagers aren't exactly known for their foresight and I had less than most). Case in point: I decided dropping out of High School was the way to go. (Though, I'd probably do that again, actually.)

As I grew angrier and more disaffected, I took ever greater pleasure in openly mocking and defying all authority figures whenever the opportunity arose, arrogantly wearing my disrespect like a badge of honor. I never took a steaming dump on the hood of a cop-car, or punched a cop in the face or took a steaming dump on a cop's face or anything, but I certainly wasn't acting with any regard for my long-term future. One might say there was an element of self-sabotage to my behavior in general. In fact, many people did say that. Repeatedly. Of course, I didn't trust anyone but myself because everybody else was so stoopid. I'd like to say that this self-sabotage reached maximum when I dropped out of school (the first time), but that was nowhere near the level of the things that were to come. Regardless, at any given moment, I had nothing but scorn and derision for everyone from my own parents, on up to the leading politicians of the day and every authority figure in between.

So imagine my surprise when many years later I found myself covering politics for an extremely prominent TV channel's online division, being flown out to Los Angeles for the year 2000 Democratic National Convention. Just fuckin' crazy.

The second to last night of the convention, President Clinton was delivering the keynote speech, and afterward there was going to be a huge lavish party thrown in his honor -- a fund-raiser for the Democrats hosted jointly by Daimler-Chrysler Corporation and the UAW. My supervisor at work (a great guy named Ethan) had friends in Clinton's White House, and he scored us access to the event.

Now, I knew I'd probably "stick out" a bit at an event like that. I mean, I look like... well... me. Goateee, neck tattoo, t-shirt 'n' jeans, sneakers. I think I looked even more severe that night wearing all black, and extra scruffy. But I pride myself on being able to get along with absolutely anybody, from Kings and Queens to the scum of the earth (to quote an old SNL sketch). Though, given the choice, I might prefer hangin' with the scum than with the Royalty. (Ahh, same thing.) Anyway, upon entering the venue, I turned to Ethan and joked, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm the only High School dropout here, aren't I." He said, "Haha... yep, probably."

So we mingled, and ate the little crab-puffs, and after a while Ethan found me again in the crowd. Ethan was a bit of a photographer. He'd gotten his camera out and explained that the president was about to arrive. When that happened, a receiving line would spontaneously form by the door, made up of people who all wanted to shake his hand and say hello, just so that they could say they shook the president's hand.

ME: Really? Seems pretty silly. (then under my breath) Ego bullshit.
ETHAN: It is. Do me a favor and get on the line too.
ME: I thought you agreed it was silly.
ETHAN: I did. But I wanna get a picture of you shaking his hand. It'll make a great [and by that I'm sure he meant "hilarious"] snapshot.
ME: Ah! I can get with that. Okay then, here I go!

So I joined the line, already pretty long.

Well, soon enough, in walked the President of the United States. He was just coming off his speech, which I'd watched of course, and was looking pretty haggard, sorta deer-in-the-headlights staring, a bit shell-shocked. I'm sure he'd been working and partying his ass off all week long. Still more to go. And the eager throng of sycophants, you know, thronged at him. Everybody was all: "Mr. President! Mr. President! So nice to see you Mr. President! I don't know if you remember me, Mr. President, I'm sure you don't remember me, of course--"

BILL: No, no... you look kinda familiar--
THRONG: Well, it was a few months ago in Michigan and we talked briefly about blah blah blah!
BILL: Oh, uh huh. Great.
THRONG: Mr. President! Mr. President!
BILL: That's my name, don't wear it out.
THRONG: It's such a pleasure to meet you Mr. President!
BILL: Well, it's a pleasure to meet you too.
THRONG: Mr. President... Just reminding you that I need to tell you about that thing...
BILL: What thing?
THRONG: You know... that thing you wanted me to get from--
BILL: Oh right... the thing. Yes... I'll find you later.
THRONG: Very good Mr. President.
Etc. etc.

So Bill just keeps shell-shocking his way slowly down the line, clasping hands with everyone, sometimes two people at a time, making eye contact, not making eye contact, too many people, can't pay attention to all of them equally, some are louder and more insistent than others, but he's trying to be there for everybody, and he's slowly approaching my position in line. It occurs to me that I'm probably gonna have to speak to him as I shake his hand, the hand of the President of the United States of bloody America, the ultimate authority figure.

Ooohhhh... oooohhhhh... I could feel the urge to do something totally inappropriate, or at least to speak truth to power, welling up inside me. Oh my god... what was I going to do? In the past, I sometimes had no idea what I was gonna do until I felt myself jump onto the conveyor belt and ride it through the baggage claim area of Logan Airport (yes, I actually did that, including where it went into the wall). So now, faced with such a gigantic opportunity to both make an anti-establishment statement and simultaneously destroy my life, how could I possibly resist!?! It was gonna take all the strength I could muster just to remain even remotely... you know... normal! But normal in this case means addressing him using the proper protocol: "Mr. President." I could keep myself from making a scene, but I didn't think I could bring myself to show him the full and proper respect due his position. I mean, I was fine with Bill Clinton the person, but I didn't particularly respect the office of President (which I imagine was the inverse of the feelings of many people in the country post-Lewinsky).

I decided to be as nice as I could. I had seen his keynote speech. I had liked it. I could compliment him on that and be done with this ridiculous situation that was suddenly stressing me out so much over simply having to behave... properly... erk! Must... not... try... anything... stupid! Secret... service... agents... will... shoot me! Here... comes... Bill...

As he shuffled past me, his hand sort of automatically reached out and shook mine. He didn't even get a chance to look at me. I only said two words: "Nice speech." But I was being sincere. I accompanied the two words with that little tight-lipped almost-smile and slight head nod that generally indicate in the least sentimental fashion possible: "I acknowledge your existence in this moment of our mutual spacetime proximity." It wasn't a fawningly "appropriate" and "respectful" greeting for the President of the United States. Instead, it was exactly the level of genuine respect for our shared humanity that I would show a brother on the street.

Bill didn't respond. I couldn't be sure he'd even heard me, what with so many other people clamoring for a moment of his attention. He continued down the line. But then, several handshakes later, he paused, and to my utter surprise he turned back, looked me right in the eye and answered my two words with two of his own. He said, "Thanks man," (the casual vernacular I prefer) completely sincerely. He accompanied those two words with the same little tight-lipped almost-smile and slight head nod.

Then he turned back forward and continued the greeting and the shuffling and the shaking and the shmoozing.

I couldn't bring myself to address him on his level. But he was perfectly willing to address me on mine. He even went a little out of his way to do so. I was impressed. It was humbling. Much respect.

Much respect, y'all.

Changes

These days, I find myself attempting a general transition from the fun but unhealthy behaviors of my foolish youth, toward whatever healthy behaviors will enable me to keep feeling like a foolish youth. I've given up the drugs. I ride the bicycle. I'm going to start doing the Bikram Yoga (the one in the heated room). And now I'm seriously contemplating giving up all alcoholic beverages (if anybody knows a way to accomplish this without severely cutting into my drunkenness, please let me know).

In addition to the changes I'm making to my personal health, I'm trying to make changes that minimize the destruction I do to the environment. I'm one of those guys who's willing to pay a tiny bit extra each month to have the electricity in his apartment come solely from wind power. Oh sure... right now, some might call me a "hippie" or a fringe sort of "eco-fanatic," but someday people like me will simply be called "people" or possibly "the ones who survived." Seriously though, I swear to [popular deity], making the wind-power switch (super easy to do) was the best thing I've done in years. It's like the weight of the world has been lifted off my shoulders. As a result, I'm standing up straighter (another healthy and long-overdue change and I'm not even kidding).

(Really, who knew I was supposed to be this tall? The world just looks and feels... wrong... from up here. I've had to lower my office chair so that my eyes will be at the height of my computer monitors. And walking down the street is so awkward now. Eh, I'll get used to it eventually.)

I'm also spilling my guts into this internet word-bucket every day, and all the ranting and the raving turns out to be nicely cathartic! My own much quieter version of primal scream therapy. Instead of all these words bunching up in my brain, keeping me awake at night, I let 'em loose onto the information superhighway and they make their way onto your computer screen where they can do no harm. I'm sleeping much better, and hopefully you're no worse for wear. If you are worse for wear, I hear the internets have lots of other things you can "click" [?] onto, and then different stuff shows up on your screen. Al Gore: awesome!

Another healthy change I plan to make: more plants. I'm gonna turn both my apartment and my office cubicle into miniature jungles. Only without the giant spiders and poisonous apes. Or is it giant apes and poisonous spiders? Eh, either way. Actually, I wouldn't mind if there were giant apes in my office cubicle. I think it would make for some witty conversation with my co-workers...

LAUREN: Nice giant ape, Jon. Sheesh.
ME: Thanks!
LAUREN: I was being sarcastic.

Then the giant ape, feeling insulted, reaches over the cubicle wall and knocks over Lauren's pen-holder. Pens scatter. Some even fall on the floor.

LAUREN: Dammit Jon! Can you please keep your giant ape on your side of the cubicle wall!? God!
ME: Sorry.

Okay, so maybe I'm better off not having a giant ape at the office.

Oh, hey... has anybody seen the Hunter S. Thompson documentary, "Gonzo"? If so, how was it? If not, wanna go? (Yet another healthy change I'd like to make: I wanna go from not having seen "Gonzo" to having seen it.)

All right.

Enuffa my yakkin'.

Let's boogie.

Desire

The theme of the most recent Moth Slam was "desire." I considered entering my name to tell a story, but ended up not doing so, because the only story I could think of on the subject was inappropriately philosophical. Not that you can't be philosophical at a Moth Slam, but more that just like everyone else (with the one exception of Elna Baker) I'd rather tell a story that stands a chance of getting me laid. Ah... desire.

The Buddha said that desire causes suffering. Buddhists sometimes expand upon that simple statement, saying that suffering is caused by the desire for external things which are always fleeting and, in fact, illusory, so even after possibly attaining such things, in the long run they cannot help but fail to truly satisfy, which inevitably leads to more desire... and more suffering.

But desire is the motive force of all human activity! So like, everything we do ultimately causes us to suffer?!

Of course! Haha! Just look at us!

I mean, I am living in what is probably the single most non-Buddhist place in the world. New York City is constantly inflaming every kind of lust imaginable, in everybody here. Sexual lust, consumer-product lust, food cravings, ego-boost-bullshit, competitive victory lust, you name it. A gigantic swirling vortex of arousal and desire, never ever truly satisfied, because it is, by its nature, unsatisfiable.

And look at New Yorkers. So many of us are so neurotic and anxious and depressed and stressed out and so we drink and drink and do this drug and that drug and fuck this one and fuck that one and just fuck whoever comes along, and the healthy ones among us are all in this kind of therapy, or that kind of therapy or some new kind of therapy, or maybe we just go shopping, because it feels so good to throw our money away on really awesome crap we don't need, until after we get home and have to find a place to put the crap in our already over-filled closets (we call them "apartments") and we notice all the unused crap we bought the last time we felt this empty, and then we really feel like shit because we totally coulda used that money...

(Even as I write this, I'm trying to remember when the new iPhones come out. It's soon, right?)

Yep. Pretty non-Buddhist.

I never thought of myself as all that caught up in the consumer culture, I mean, I like my Chuck Taylor sneakers just fine, but I wear them until they completely disintegrate. Like, down to individual sneaker atoms (Sneakronium). I was, however, most definitely a prisoner of lust when I first moved into town. But then that head-explosion thing (I've mentioned) happened to me, and that changed everything. Too complex an experience to describe in any great detail right now (and it kinda defies description anyway) so let me just say that in the wake of having been to "the other side" and back, I was left with absolutely no desire for any transitory product of spacetime.

All the things that I used to strive for, all the things that everybody else strives for, suddenly struck me as utterly worthless -- ludicrous to even bother paying attention to them, much less to want them, much less to actually make an effort to obtain them. I mean, I still needed to pay rent, and eat the occasional meal and all, but as long as I had the bare minimum to survive, I didn't give a crap about anything else.

I didn't even care about sex anymore. Like, not at all. Oh, I could still appreciate the hotness of a hottie when she'd strut past, but then I'd just laugh my ass off... "Oh my god... I used to be such a slave to pussy! Hahah!" And it's not like I stopped having or enjoying sex, but it became completely unnecessary. Even after having great sex with an amazing girl, if she wanted to do it again sometime, I could totally take it or leave it. No cravings whatsoever. Like, think of a really delicious food, but one which you just don't happen to feel like eating at the moment. You could eat it, but you could also pass. It was just like that. In my case, I don't have much of a sweet tooth, so a good comparison would be to, say, an extra-large double fudge chocolate brownie sundae. Nobody NEEDS an extra-large double fudge chocolate brownie sundae. It will never be necessary to eat one. I will never particularly crave one. But if somebody offered me a spoonful, I'd probably take it and enjoy it just fine. (Though not these days because I can't have any of the ingredients.)

Another food analogy: let's say, you like McDonald's hamburgers. You think they are just sooo delicious. You try to eat them whenever possible. Then, one day, someone feeds you the finest filet mignon in existence. After that, McDonald's doesn't seem so great any more. You walk by a McDonald's restaurant and say to yourself, "Wow... I can't believe I used to get so worked up over those hamburgers."

So, I found myself devoid of all cravings. No wants. At least, not for anything in the normal day-to-day realm. I did want to repeat the transcendent experience though. So I took up meditation. I was pretty disciplined about it too... for a while. Within a short time, I could put myself into a pretty deep state almost immediately, and I could sit still like that for long stretches at a time, just watching the pretty light-show on the inside of my skull, and that was way more fascinating to me than anything else I used to be into. Spiritual pursuits were all so new. Everything else was a been-there-done-that yawn by comparison.

And it turned out the Buddha was exactly right. Without all the constant desires and cravings for fleeting external enticements, I no longer had any problems. It was so weird. All the mental effort I'd devoted to obsessing over my so-called "problems" was now freed up for other uses. I had so much more time! So much more energy! I didn't know what to do with myself! And that energy would come bubbling up out of me in quirky little expressions of joy that I could barely contain, at totally inappropriate moments. Imagine how weird it would be to see a total stranger spontaneously burst into a fit of the giggles when he's by himself on the corner waiting for the light to change. I was that guy. I didn't particularly want to be a lunatic, but I was so happy that I didn't care.

I would float through my day in this craziest, edgiest of cities, in a bubble of simple contentment, watching as all around me everybody clawed all over each other to get:

- a phone number
- a bargain
- a taxi
- ahead
- some head
- a spot at the bar
- noticed
- the latest craze object (supplies are running low! hurry!)
- a girlfriend
- a boyfriend
- signed
- etc.

And I would just glide past all of it, like "no thanks, I'm good."

And people would be all, "You sure? It's mighty tasty!"

And I would say, "I'm sure it is, but it's not for me. You enjoy it though."

And people would frown, and look at me like I was nuts, or just plain stupid for turning down the opportunity to snort some coke with some fine bitches in the back of Puffy's limo, possibly even getting sort of pissed off at me as in "How DARE you turn us down?!" and I'd be all, "Thanks anyway, but I've got something way better to do!" and they'd be like, "What could you possibly have to do that's better than this?" and I'd be all, "I'm gonna go home, turn off the lights, and sit quietly on the floor with my eyes closed for as long as I can! Haha! Isn't that great?!"

I suppose I'm lucky nobody called the men in white coats to come haul me away.

Now, I'm not sure how long this most amazing period lasted. Maybe a year. Maybe two. Hard to say really, because in some ways, it never ended, and in some ways it definitely did. I couldn't sustain it. I didn't particularly even try. I didn't have a reliable wisdom tradition (can't bring myself to use the word "religion") to draw on, or any real knowledge, simply relying on my intuition to guide me. Sometimes this was just fine. A lot of the time, I felt like I was flying blind, even when I was just fine. And sometimes I did totally fuck things up.

First of all, on some level, I just didn't know how to live as this happy problem-free person I'd become. I mean, I'm a mellow version of an edgy weird neurotic urban Jewboy. I can't function without problems! My entire sense of humor was based on being perpetually infuriated! It was a defense mechanism against how badly everything sucked. If everything is suddenly fine, then I have no use for such a mechanism. How can I be fun at parties if I can't make people laugh due to the most unfortunate fact that I actually like life?!? Oh My God... I've been turned into one of those wide-eyed earnest no-sarcasm dullard people that I always used to mock so incessantly because they used to creep me out so hard!! Poetic Justice! Nooooooo!

And it's not like I could even get upset about it, because the "problem" was that I had no problems! I was too fucking happy! I mean, I LIKED it, even as I watched people squirm and try to get away from me at cocktail parties. I knew I was boring them and creeping them out by being all "genuine" at them and shit, but seeing them run away in fear and disgust only amused me more! And of course, I couldn't even mention this to anybody, much less "complain."

FRIEND: So, what's the matter?
ME: I'm too happy.
FRIEND: Um...
ME: Yeah, my life's too good. I can't stand it.
FRIEND: Should I kick you in the balls or something?
ME: Well, no, I don't think that's the answer, really.
FRIEND: Because I kinda want to.
ME: No, really. That's okay.
FRIEND: I so want to kick you in the balls right now. Are you sure you won't let me?
ME: Should I not have said anything? I shouldn't have said anything.
FRIEND: You definitely should not have said anything. I'm gonna have to kick you now.
ME: Okay fine. Kick away.
FRIEND: Oh no, not if you're just gonna lie down and take it. What kind of friend would I be then?
ME: What kind of friend are you now?!
FRIEND: You're the one complaining about how your life's "too good." I should totally kick you!
ME: You're right. You should. Totally. Go ahead.
FRIEND: Oh My God You Are Such An Asshole!
ME: What? What do you want me to do?
FRIEND: I want you to suffer. Like the rest of us. Is that so wrong?
ME: I don't think I can! I don't remember how!
FRIEND: I don't want to kick you in the balls anymore. Now I just want to kill you.
ME: You shouldn't do that.
FRIEND: WHY NOT!?
ME: Because you might feel bad about it later, or get sent to jail or something.
FRIEND: But not because YOU'D have a problem with me killing you.
ME: Better than living with crushed testicles, I imagine.
FRIEND: Erk-- arg-- mmp--
ME: Yeah, no. Death ain't no big deal. It's just a transition from this kind of life to a different kind of life. And I mean, I've had a good run here as this weird jon-levinish meat-thing. Especially these last couple of years! Hoo doggie!
FRIEND: SO STOP COMPLAINING!
ME: Oh right! Thanks! You've been a big help!
FRIEND: AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH.

Then, something else started happening that was pretty negative. I found I was kinda getting off on turning things down. Like, instead of merely not being interested, I started perversely enjoying people's stunned reactions when I'd opt out of things other people would kill for. And that's no longer authentic. That's no longer a healthy detachment. It was a weird reverse attachment. I became attached to detachment. (Who knew that could even happen?!)

And of course, the more I opted out of things, the more cut-off from humanity I became. Remember those years you never (or rarely ever) saw or heard from me? Well...

I made a half-assed attempt to find other people who were going through what I was, or who had already been through such a thing, both to learn from them, and just to be able to talk to somebody about it who wouldn't think I was nuts (or want to kick me in the nuts). And as it turns out there are fucking huge numbers of such people all over the place! But I hate them all.

Just kidding.

There are tons and tons of people, obviously, who had been through similar things. Ridiculous to think I was breaking new ground on any of this shit. I mean, really. What the fuck. So, right... I went to Burning Man (too loud). And I visited a yoga/meditation ashram upstate (too rainbow-y). And I attended a lecture at the Theosophical Society (too dry and humorless). And I attended a lecture sponsored by the Multi-disciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) (too spaced out). And of course, I met lots of other people who knew the score. But I never really let myself become part of a community. I've mentioned in the past how I tend not to join things, even when they're amazing.

And while it was definitely comforting to know I was not alone, I guess I still preferred to go it alone. I'm sure I was some kind of renunciate hermit monk in a past life. Really hard to manage that in Midtown fucking Manhattan. Especially due to the fact that radiating a fairly purely happy vibe, as I was, made other people respond to me totally differently. Before, when I was a miserable bastard, I could skulk around more-or-less invisible. If I wanted some attention, I'd have to go out of my way and do something funny to get it. For a while after I got all happy, people paid attention to me. A lot. Way more than ever before. Way more than I was used to. More than I could handle. At first, I was sort of flattered of course, and if I'd been less of a renunciate by nature and more of an opportunist, I could've gotten very very laid during that time. But I knew that it wasn't "me" or anything I'd done to particularly deserve the attention. And after a while, I found it hard to simply go about my regular routine (New Yorkers can be very persistent). I even left the city for 4 months one winter, to escape to the woods and not be around anybody. If I'd known about silent meditation retreats, I would've done the longest one available, and then done it again. Several times. A psychic lady I saw a while back, told me that I was caught between two polar opposite life-paths, neither of which was really "right" unto itself. She called them the Priest and the Rock Star. Eeewww. I don't want to be either of those! And right... I'm not supposed to be one or the other. I'm supposed to integrate them into one middle-way healthy person. (Buddha was right again!) Well, if anybody knows how to do that, I'm all freakin' ears.

(Actually, I think I have the answer. I think I've had the answer for a while. I've got to take up a regular Yoga practice. The whole mind/body/spirit integration thing.)

Anyway, due mostly to my own stupidity, I ended up almost squandering my calm, happy centeredness, because I started wanting something I had never thought I'd want again. I started wanting to WANT things. In other words, on some level, I wanted things to go back to the way they were before, when life was crappy. Well... be careful what you wish for ladies and gentlemen! (Just kidding.) (Though, yes, in general, it is a good idea to be careful what you wish for, because we have more power than we think we have.)

Nowadays, I am back to wrestling with lusts and desires, but not like I used to. I don't think I'll ever go back to being the way I was... before. One of my problems (I have problems, woo hoo!) is in recognizing when I do legitimately want something, versus when I only think I ought to want it. My desire mechanism is a little rusty and it slips a bit. But one of the things about being me is that something like a busted desire mechanism doesn't bother me.

Maybe I'd be better off if it did.

Should I want it to bother me more?

I wish I knew! (Too much?)

(Now you can see why I didn't try to tell that at the Moth Slam. God. Can you imagine! The whole audience would still be vomitting now, a week later!)

Meh

Not feeling up to writing much today. If you check this space regularly, you probably noticed I took the last two days off. Holiday weekend and all. Entitles me to a break, no? And I certainly didn't want to spoil everybody's fun with rantings and ravings about the hypocrisy of celebrating U.S. Independence Day. (I have trouble staying on the shiny happy surface of things. It's a hang-up. Sue me.) In fact, I didn't really even get to see the fireworks as I stupidly left my apartment too late, forgot they close the east river bridges to foot and bike traffic and thus was stuck in the subway while the ceremonial bombs were bursting in red-glare air. But if you've seen one fireworks display, you've seen 'em all. Unless they, like, blow up the moon or something.

In other news, I hear that people like drama. But I lead a pretty drama-free life. Or at least, I try to. (I succeed.) To the outside observer, my existence probably seems very boring. But to those of you observing my life from inside my brain (you know who you are) the picture looks very different. (Of course, you know that already.) For the benefit of readers who don't parasitically feed off the energetic emanations of my pineal gland, suffice it to say I lead a richly imaginative inner life.

I do seem to be surrounded by people who create drama, often where there need not be any. Most of them are very young (fetuses) and so don't know any better. No, that's not true. They subconsciously know that without creating drama now, while they're young enough to withstand the nonsense, they won't have good stories to tell later. So I guess I should commend them. I was no different. Almost got me killed a few times. I'm definitely over it now though. And so, with that, I bid you all a resounding: "meh."

Nifty little tidbit: read on the internets that of the 69 US cities with populations above 250,000 people, ranking them in order of which enabled their inhabitants to accumulate wealth most easily, New York City ranked... any guesses?

Dead last.

As if that was even a question.

Ranked number one was Plano, Texas.

Proof positive that money isn't everything, can't buy happiness, can't buy me love and is the root of all evil.

And speaking of money, the dollar continues to fall. I guess I won't be going to Europe any time soon. But that does mean we'll be seeing ever increasing numbers of Europeans visiting NYC. As far as I'm concerned, this can only be a good thing (the Danish, e.g., are ranked the "happiest people in the world" which is equivalent to healthiest and most enlightened, so having more of them come here and rub off on us can only work in our favor -- not to mention, they're all pretty easy on the eyes).

An equally reliable source (those internets again) reports that Ugly Americans are no longer the most hated tourists in the world (woo hoo!) but rather the French and Chinese. Yeah, but this is only because with aforementioned plummeting dollar, we Ugly Americans can't afford to shit on anyone but ourselves at the moment (unless you count our military operations, which... no vacation for them either). We probably could afford to go shit on, maybe, the most decimated countries. And I bet they don't even get asked to participate in the "survey" that coughs up the "worst tourists" results, so we're in the clear!

Hmm... seems I've written a goodly amount today, especially for someone who didn't feel like writing anything. So I guess I'll sign off. Besides, the brain-energy-feeders need me to run some more errands for them -- it never ends with those guys! Almost like I work for them or something. Just as long as I don't have to kill again -- gotta draw the line somewhere.

This is Humbling

Found this on Gizmodo (yeah, I've always been a bit of a gadget geek). The most impressive animation art I think I've ever seen, considering how it was done. The sheer effort that must've gone into this is mind-boggling...



MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Looks Like I'm the Straight One

Well, that settles it. I'm definitely not gay.

(My various ex-girlfriends go "well duh...")

Not that this was actually in question.

But just a few minutes ago, I saw concrete proof.

I was walking up 9th Avenue in my neighborhood, on my way to get some food from the Amish Market, return a DVD to the crappy little mom'n'pop video store that's barely managing to survive, and pick up a dish-drying rack (can't believe I've been living without one for so long) when I saw, walking the other way, my doppleganger. My gay doppleganger.

Apparently, I have a gay evil twin. I mean, picture me, only, you know, much gayer.

Wait... My evil twin is gay? Um... Fierce?

Okay, so how do I know he was gay? Well, his features were softer and more effeminate than mine, and he was kind of swishy as he walked. His big wild hair was styled in a purposeful way, instead of just fuckin' crazy like mine. His beard was neatly trimmed. His sunglasses were similar to mine only not the $5 St. Mark's kind -- his were expensive. He was wearing a sleeveless t-shirt and these darling little shorts. Oh, and he was holding some other dude's hand as they walked along.

Other than those things, he really did look just like me.

So if there are two of us, and he is obviously the gay one, I guess I'm the straight one.

I wonder if he's off somewhere with his boyfriend going, "My evil twin is some disheveled hetero dude with no style? Gross!"

Sorry to disappoint, but you're not what I was expecting in an evil twin either, pal. Like looking into a swishy mirror.

A Moment

I shared "a moment" with a stranger today. Well, I share moments with strangers all the time, after all, I live and work in one of the densest areas of a big dense city. But this moment was funny and sweet and I think she enjoyed it almost as much as I did.

I was walking down 7th Avenue toward what would ultimately be the purchase of a surprisingly horrible lunch (a salad bar melange from the Chelsea Whole Foods Market which consisted almost entirely of salt as it turned out). This portion of the avenue is populated by many very fashion conscious young ladies. Not that there's any part of NYC that isn't, but this is right by the Fashion Institute of Technology (a good school for that industry, but such a dumb name). These young ladies tend to push the boundaries. They're hipper, cooler, edgier, sometimes prettier but it doesn't matter because they're soooo badass. Well, they think so anyway.

At one corner, I was crossing the street while she was waiting to cross the avenue. She was a tall thin very pretty African-American woman, with big wild hair. When she saw me, a lanky white dude, she obviously couldn't help noticing how big and wild my hair has gotten (it's gotten very big and wild.) She made eye contact with me, and we shared wry smiles, bonding over our mutual out-there hair (looked great on her; me... eh). And then she went back to her cel-phone and I went back to my, um, nothing in particular.

I'd never bonded with anyone over hair before.

Usually... it's the beard.

I Blame Leary - Part 2

A little while ago, I started writing about our divided America in a post called "I Blame Leary" which made no actual mention of Timothy Leary. I was working up to that, but let myself get side-tracked ranting about how religion has been co-opted and perverted by greedy "leadership" to keep people warlike despite the fact that religion is supposed to foster peace & harmony, or at the very least, tolerance. (Kurt Vonnegut once said that the problem with religion was simply that it aimed too high -- if instead of "Love thy neighbor" Jesus had said, "Tolerate thy neighbor" enough people might actually have attempted to comply to make a real difference.)

But getting back on track... Two Americas: one good, one batshit crazy. Each side utterly convinced it is the good one and equally convinced of the batshit craziness of the other. How does this happen? A stupid-sounding but actually very interesting thing called "Spiral Dynamics Theory" cooked up by a psychology professor named Clare W. Graves, explains it pretty well, and as I understand it, it goes a-something, a-like a-this...

As we individual humans grow from infancy to adulthood, we change and evolve in many ways, including our levels of identification, conscious awareness, psychological development, etc. We move through various stages. But not everybody progresses at the same rate, and not everybody reaches the same stage before "leveling off".

Similarly, whole cultures exist at various stages of development, based on where a critical mass of adult individuals fall in their own personal development. Now, no matter what culture you examine, from any given time and place, you'll find individuals within it at all stages. But until there is that critical mass of people at least one level up from the overall level, the culture itself won't change. Certain individuals help their cultures evolve, and certain cultures help their individuals evolve and both are in constant flux, always playing off each other, etc. etc.

Now, just because an individual's level of development is "higher/more advanced" or "lower/less advanced" than someone else's, doesn't mean he/she is better or worse, nicer or meaner, smarter or dumber, etc. (though wherever they are completely shapes that person's entire take on reality). Similarly, less advanced cultures and more advanced cultures both have positive features and negative ones.

Individuals and cultures at the highest levels manifest the currently unusual ability to recognize that there even are different levels of being to begin with. They also see each level as an inherently necessary and valued evolutionary step, and they are able to retain the positive attributes of the less advanced stages, even as they move on to more advanced stages (very Burning Man).

On the other hand, individuals and cultures at intermediate or low levels think that their level is the only one that exists. They don't think of themselves as being on a "level" -- it's just the way it is, was and always will be -- and thus cannot consciously benefit from the attributes of other levels whether higher or lower. When a group at such a level encounters someone on any other level, they unconsciously assume the guy is on their level (as there are no distinctions to them). But since the guy's behavior is dictated by the different level he is on, he could seem a bit "off" to the group. Maybe even insane. Possibly criminally so. Or, perhaps the guy will be revered as a god. Either reaction is obviously incorrect, but probably inevitable, given the limited awareness of the group. There are many famous examples of this throughout history.

Typically, when an entire culture is nearing the shift from its current level of development to the next, as it gains the critical mass of more advanced individuals needed to hit the tipping point, the culture sort of "spasms" a bit, as it shakes off the remnants of a possibly tenacious old guard, before a new equilibrium and smooth forward momentum into the full flowering of the new paradigm is achieved. The most obvious metaphor for this would be birthing pains. Often, something drastic must occur in the culture, for the transition to take place. It could be violent. But not necessarily. Some births are smoother than others.

We are obviously in the throes of this process right now. We have been for a several decades.

The two Americas consist of:

• the people who fear change, so resist and try to prevent this transition
• typically operating at a feudal level, culturally, if not even less advanced
• those who welcome the inevitable transition and work to bring it about
• typically operating at a groovy "1960's" level, if not more advanced

Interestingly, if we continue the "birth" metaphor, then it is the progressive liberal folks who are like midwives trying to ease the process and bring our new baby gently and painlessly into being, and it is the conservative folks who are unwittingly trying to abort it. Of course, given their level of cultural development (a pre-psychedelic, pre-scientific, pre-renaissance mindset) and the fact that they don't know other levels of awareness exist, they can't help but think they're right and that any other viewpoint is insane. But if you interfere with the natural birthing process, you either kill the baby (society), kill the mother (earth), or both. Fortunately for us all, many people are waking up these days.

So why do I say I "blame" Timothy Leary? Well, I think this transition would be going a lot smoother if he hadn't pushed so hard for it so prematurely. The advent of LSD was the most significant event of the 20th century, as far as I'm concerned. LSD has been to our culture what labor-inducing drugs are to a pregnancy. The shit is not to be taken lightly.

In the early days of LSD research, back when such a thing was legal and small amounts were freely available if you knew the right experimental psychologist, Aldous Huxley advocated spreading its conscious use slowly, gradually, starting with influential members of the intelligentsia, and letting it trickle down from there. Leary didn't like the elitist sound of that, and probably feared the creation of some new psychedelic class system, and so advocated dosing as many people as possible as fast as possible.

Now, I'm not elitist, not by any stretch, but Huxley correctly realized that society wasn't ready for a tidal wave of psychedelia. But that's exactly what Leary unleashed. And what happened... the fearless young people tried it, had their revelations and their freakouts and amazing things started to happen. But their parents were scared shitless. For probably the first time, an enormous amount of young people were doing something totally alien to their folks. And the Generation Gap was invented. Or maybe just the biggest generation gap to date.

The nation bifurcated into the people who were adventurous of spirit and wanted to see what the drugs were all about, and the ones (not just in the older generation, of course) who were afraid of all that stuff to begin with, and recoiled in horror at seeing what happened to the kids who got into it. I mean, if you've never tried it yourself, how could anyone possibly expect you to understand purple paisley?

And enough people were adventurous enough to cause society to take a big clumsy lurching step forward. But the actual critical mass hadn't yet been reached. So that step faltered. And the old guard mustered all of its strength to fight off the insane-looking, rainbow-colored, glorious mess that it couldn't understand to save its life.

And even though pop-culture has largely remained progressive (and drug-fueled), the power-structure has done everything it could think of to set the clock back to before mass use of LSD ever happened. The neo-cons knew that there were millions of people quietly shaking in fear of all the healthy changes taking place in society, so they naturally exploited that fear and formed a new basis by which mostly rural and suburban people of modest means could be convinced to vote greedy billionaires who don't give a crap about them into high office. Certainly better than seeing Wichita overrun by those gender-bending, free-loving, birth-controlling, women working, inter-racial, communal, tree-hugging, artsy, homo-jewish baby-killing liberal elite book-reading hollywood druggie pornographers! Aaaaaaiiiiiiiiiieeeeeee!!!!!!

So now we have one America desperately trying to keep its head buried in the sand even as the beach erodes away, and another America dancing its ass off, (partly to keep from crying). Still, I'm hopeful for the future. Perhaps it took the absolute abomination of Dubya to shake enough people into their own personal transitions, pushing us ever closer to that beautiful critical mass. It hasn't been gentle and steady, like Huxley wanted. But we're getting there nonetheless.

Random Musings

- If I were king of New York, there'd be way more bike racks.

- Recently met a woman who writes about business and economics, but is also a skilled palm reader. Encountering anyone with this rare combination of abilities merits a blog entry on its own. But she read my palm and it was shockingly accurate. We were at a very lively casual little cocktail party (in her home) and I wasn't expecting to be presented with so much deep truth about myself. The part I remember most clearly was that in another life, I probably would've been more conventional, because I am a person who actually likes order and structure, but that due to an exquisite sensitivity (her unfortunate -- though eloquent -- words) I forced myself onto a much less conventional path. (Afterward, when I told her I'd dropped out of high school, she seemed gleefully impressed at how dead-on her own reading had been.) She also said I needed to get out of my head more, though she said it in much more refined language. I think the implication was that I'd get laid more if I went back to thinking with my balls (or my heart -- sniff).

- Lately, I've been finding myself attracted to married women. Not just because I've become a sick bastard who only wants what can't or shouldn't be had, but rather because married women aren't trying. They're just more at ease, more confident, and more genuine in their interactions with you, and that vibe is so much hotter than what I encounter in the single women out there. This is a problem. If I don't let go of this, I'm gonna be alone for a long time. Unless I meet some real hip swingers. Make ourselves a nice wobbly 'H'.

- I'm toying with the idea of getting a new digital camera. If this blog starts filling up with photographs, you'll know that I went through with the purchase. But I've been to B&H recently (it's on my ride home from work) and the camera selection is a veritable diner-menu of frustrating excess. So this may take a while.

- Maybe I should offer my services as a video shooter to the married couples out there, if they want to spice it up in the bedroom by making some high-quality personal pornos. I mean, there's only so much you can do in bed when you're holding the camera yourself. And some people get off on being observed. Freaks.

- I think I have psychic intestines. I start farting BEFORE I eat something that will give me gas. Is that possible?

- I read in a book about Vedic spirituality that if you always tell the truth, you eventually come to embody the vibration of truth and gain the ability to make things come true with your words. So, if you're a pessimist, you should probably lie from time to time. Just to be safe.

- Based on my mention of the book "All the Shah's Men" in a previous post, my friend Justine suggested I write up a little book-recommendation list. I will happily do that as soon as I read some more books. Look for it soon. If you, like, y'know, know how to read and all.

16 Things a Guy Named Stefan Sagmeister Has Learned in His Life

Stefan Sagmeister is a designer who gave a funny, inspiring talk at the TED conference back in 2004. Toward the end, he put up a slide of a list he found in an old notebook of his: 16 things he felt like he'd learned in his life. I like the list. I agree with the list. I could've written the list. I did not write the list. I can't say I always live according to the list. But I'd like to. Here is his list...

Complaining is silly. Either act or forget.

Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid. I have to live now.

Being untruthful works against me.

Helping other people helps me.

Organizing a charity group is surprisingly easy.

Everything I do always comes back to me.

Drugs feel great in the beginning and become a drag later on.

Over time I get used to everything and start taking it for granted.

Money does not make me happy.

Traveling alone provides a new perspective on life.

Assuming is stifling.

Keeping a diary supports my personal development.

Trying to look good limits my life.

Worrying solves nothing.

Material luxuries are best enjoyed in small doses.

Having guts always works out for me.

I'm an Idiot

So I was going out to Governor's Island today for the Figment Festival, and from there I was going to go to Sally and Daniel McKleinfeld's for a party. I figured I'd buy a nice bottle of booze to bring them, and for some ridiculous reason, I decided to buy it in MY neighborhood, at the beginning of the many bicycle miles I'd have to ride. This was a bad idea on several levels. Most immediately, it was a hot, humid day. Like the inside of a dog's mouth. Having any extra weight in my backpack, plastering it more firmly to my back, was contra-indicated. But I didn't think of that until after I bought it, and I was too lazy to return the unopened bottle to the store to get my money back.

I rode all the way down to the bottom of Manhattan, stood on the line to get on the Gov Island ferry, and then some random person said people with bikes had to go to a different line. At first I didn't know whether to trust him or not, but the line I was on was so bloody long that it wouldn't matter if I got out of it and returned later. I had nothing to lose by leaving to investigate the possible existence of a special bicycle line.

And lo! There was such a line! And it was much much much shorter, and in the shade! Bikes RULE!

BUT... upon being let into the shade and onto the line, a security guy said I'd need to open my bag to let them search it. I don't think they searched anyone else. But I was looking particularly terroristic so I didn't mind. Better safe than sorry. I could've blown up Governor's Island, for all they knew. Of course, that meant they'd find my brand new, unopened bottle of top shelf liquor. I didn't want them to think I was trying to smuggle it over to the Figment Festical, so I freely offered the information that I had it, and was giving it as a gift to a friend at a birthday party later, and they confiscated it.

I told them at least to drink it themselves, or give it to somebody, anybody, a homeless guy.

They threw it in the garbage.

I kind of feel like the Figman Festibule people didn't sufficiently warn me that my obvious booze would be confiscated, after all, Governor's Island has no commerce or provisions to speak of and if there was anything we'd need throughout the day, we were instructed to bring it ourselves. What if I needed booze? The event organizers should've recommended concealing our booze in non-booze containers (classy to give as a gift that way). And it's not like a drunken disorderly person could really do any harm. What was I gonna do, try to break Fort Jay?

What a waste. But still... rules are rules and I probably should've anticipated that.

Oh well. It still turned out to be a fun-ish day out there. Things certainly improved once I got to Sally and Daniel's. They threw a great backyard bbq party. And when they took the second bottle of booze I bought that day away from me, thankfully they didn't throw it in the garbage. Therefore, I like Sally and Daniel better than Governor's Island Ferry Security guards.

"Oh Jon," you say, "But that's like comparing apples and oranges!"

Oh yeah?! Compare my foot up your ass!

"Oh Jon, that doesn't even make sense."

Oh yeah?! Make sense of my foot up your ass!"

Some years ago, I found myself peering out the wraparound windows of a corner office on the 42nd floor of a midtown skyscraper after hours (never mind what I was doing there) on a beautiful clear night. The view to the south, of the Empire State Building and all the way down to lower Manhattan was glorious. But I had a vision, clear as day, of the far distant future when all of it would be gone. The vision wasn't frightening, and it didn't make me sad. It was just stating a fact. Don't get attached. It's all temporary. And our way of life will probably turn out to be a lot "more temporary" even than the stuff we worked so hard to build on this tiny sliver of bedrock.

I bet those security guards will feel stupid for blindly following the rules then!