If the whole human race lay in one grave, the 
epitaph on its headstone might well be: `It seemed
a good idea at the time.' 

Michael Pollan knows what to do....

http://www.michaelpollan.com/article.php?id=97

Why does the man, dirty and soiled, with the creased shirt, smile more easily, speak more positively than all the those choking in ties, standing firm like the facts they know too well, forbidding them to relax, in case something in their attire shifts out of place, reveals something they'd rather not show... a roll of pasty flesh, squishing through the button holes, something out of their control, shaming but unintentional...like the business they do so well, to maximize profits so they can buy a larger shirt size each year.
There is nothing we can do but just improve on the system we already know is failing us. We must make changes from within the system apparently, a preventative measure to help seal the holes in the the levies, better this time, so the truth won't leak out again. At least not in our life time...

Why can't we feel between each other the same intensity without the music on in the background?

Shawn talked more than he looked at the road, the whole journey.
"Hey, yous wanna find the butt of a joint I left in the car door," he said as we pulled out of Natalie's the first time round. It wasn't unexpected.
"Sure, you want me to light it?"
"Yer, sure, I always like to smoke when I'm driving." He looked at me uncertainly, worried i might judge him. "It's the only way to drive such long distances."

"So everyone says.. everyone smokes and drives round here. Its pretty much tradition."
The longest Californian wave everyone rides, I thought.
Charlie had grabbed the back seat first so she wouldn't have to deal with the conversation making. I took a toke and thought about putting on some good music and settling into a long dazy gaze out the window. I wanted to pass out, but it was soon clear he wanted to talk,

"So this is your first time to the burn?"

"Yeah..."

"I can tell... you don't need all this stuff."

"I know but I've had to carry everything around with me this summer, because I don't have a place at the moment"

"Ok, well, seriously you don't need anything for this trip except drugs and a bed!"

"Is that what's in the brief case."

"yer."he looked at me defensively like I might try and thieve them. Or maybe it was paranoia. "Thats my contribution to the camp. My friends will provide everything else and I'll supply the drugs. Thats how burning man works." He looked at me triumphantly, whilst we sped down the 88 past cop cars and fellow burner mobiles.

"So whats in there exactly?"

"Oh a concoction of things. Name something and it will most likely be in there."

I didn't need to.

"Where do you get it all from?"

"I don't do it often. Its just this is my week to go crazy. For one week every year. Other than that I'm a well-behaved working dad."

"You're a dad!"

"Yeah you wanna see a picture of the little 'un"

"Wow she looks pretty grown up now."

"Yeah she's seven years old."

"Let me have a look," Charlie grabs the picture from me, "Wow she's beautiful. She's going to be trouble when she's older."

"Yeah I know" he sighed

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-seven."

"Wow you were pretty young to have a kid."

"Yeah I was but I didn't have much of a choice. I came over here like you did to study and got a girl pregnant." he attempted a laugh but he looked strung out.

"Shit man!" Charlie's unfailing tact.

"I know. She wanted to keep the baby so i thought i should come back out and be there for the young'un."

"Thats so good of you. Most men wouldn't bother." I say.

"So what happened, hole in the condom?"

"Nah, nah she was on the smarties..you know the pill but I don't know it must'nt have worked. But I'm happy I'm out here, yer know. I've started up my own business. I'm living in the sun, by the ocean in a cool city. Its alright fer me. I get to see my daughter half the week, the rest I have to myself."

"SO you split with this girl?"

"Well we were never really together, we dated but i was only meant to be there fer a year. I was actually with another girl back in Ireland at the time and I had to call her to say I had met someone else. That was hard to do on the other side of the world. I remember calling her, trying to explain why it wasn't going to work while this american chick was with me in bed. So that was broken off luckily before the other girl was aware she was pregnant. I found out when I got back and we weren't anything that serious. My brother had just got out of prison so it was a good time to get home. Yer that was tough and all, fuckin eedjit. The flaming gobshite is always in truble, breaking the law. Its like me when i was younger. I tried so hard to be a good'un but I feel into a bad crowd when I was like sixteen and ended up dropping out of school, because they caught me dealing."

"Really?! what were you dealing?"

"Ah back then I was into acid a lot but I hardly ever do it now. I think I was just bored like. But yer know how it is when yer young. Anyway now its all good. I started my own private painting business a couple of years ago. Got a few men working fer me."

"Nice."

"Yer, I told them all to have a week off because i can't trust them to get the job done properly when I'm not there. A couple of weeks ago I hire this one young irish kid who was getting mixed up in some dark business in san fran and he only went and got arrested. So I had to bail him out but now he's done a runner. he's only 19."

"Yeah there's loads of you irish in san fran. Did you all get married or what?"

"Na most of them are illegal. They set up bars and small businesses like me. San francisco is good and liberal like that."

"Yeah I would love to live there one day. We had the craziest weekend last month, partying with drag queens, hanging out in long beach, i love it there so much. There are so many freaks but its so expensive.

"Yer, i hardly go out. Some weekends I go out, pop a few, but rarely."

"How much have you got with you by the way?"

"Enough. i take up to 9 some nights. i don't stop. ey young wan, kipping in the back there can you grab me a little sashet of charlie, charlie." He turns his head right round to face her

"You want some."

"Right now.!?"

"Course, i need it to keep me driving, otherwise i'm going to crash"

"Have you even slept Shawn."

"Nah, its alright though. i feel good but when we to get supplies i don't want to be too long. i know what you's young wans are like" he pours out a tiny half line in the hollow of the back of his hand between thumb and finger, and expertisely snorts it up his nose, with one eye on the road, one hand on the steering wheel and...

"Are you sure you don't want some...?"

~

Many lines later we are on the road into the expansive landscape which makes us feel like we've morphed in to the insect world of size relativity, in our little bug mobile we are but a speck on the desert floor, spinning a trail of dust clouds behind us, arguing over which music would best suit this beautiful moment. A sunset, an open road and then cops...behind us accelerating theyloom in the rear view mirror, Shawn is oblivious jabbering more incessantly than ever at us with barely a grip on the road except our reminders. We had got to know him now, so we could shout at him.

"Shawn there's cops behind us>"

"yer I know they are everywhere, its ok. So I'm meant to be meeting this girl their from last year but I don't know..."

"The cops pulled out as they got closer and zoomed past us, with flashing lights. I was too tired to get scared. I was more scared about running off the road at 60 miles and hr. This guy was a lunatic.

"I'm not always like this yer...its just my one holiday, so i go all out for fucks sake a man needs a break. You want to drop a pill with me when we get their."

"Maybe"

"Go on, they are good. i'll give you both one each for free."

"I kind of want to take it easy on my first night."

He didn't understand. "you gals have no idea about what you are about to experience! i sometimes take up to 9 pills a night. As the saying goes, if their ain;t any spuds on the plate, then its only a snack."

"You may be lying in the gutter but at least you are looking up at the stars."

We arrive at the best time, in a desert dusk haze of settling dust with the twilight spreading from the east to meet the euphoric pink remnants of the sinking sun in the west.

Theme of the american dream cool but not so cool quotes

will yer,

fuckin eedjit da, gobshite, flaming, for fucks sake, Jaysus, fella, gimme, mingin, muggins , nah, shit the bed! piss artist. plastered. pikey thicko

Young wan..

The "Burn" man

He wanted to leave as soon as he had arrived. Charlie and I were still not ready but we threw all our kit in the back of his truck and left anyway, which meant we had to make one return trip to get my camera charger. There might have been a second, if we'd realized we'd left all our bedding for the tent behind earlier.
2 hours into the journey Nathalie calls to let us know that we'd left the largest bag we could have forgotten in the middle of her room. I lived with Nathalie for the last year in college and so she wasn't surprised we'd left stuff behind, nor was I, or Charlie, my best mate who I'd been traveling with all summer. I'd already set the tone of our seven weeks traveling together when I came a day late to pick her up from the airport.
~
I was on time and extremely happy with myself about that I remember, until instead of a hug I got a slap across the face.
"Where the hell have you been?" she yelled.
"What do you mean?" I was still innocent.
"I arrived yesterday" she looked at me with those 'typical Soph' eyes.
I was shocked, "No!" and couldn't help a nervous giggle, "Ooops..."
"I thought you were dead!"
"What! Why?"
"You said don't leave the airport until I pick you up and so I waited for hours and then I couldn't get hold of you, coz you don't have a fucking phone and after a while I just began panicking, imagining you lying in ditch somewhere dead!"
"You are so melodramatic!"
"Soph! How would you like it arriving in a huge city the other side of the world and your best friend just not turning up to meet you."
"So what did you do..."
"I called dad and he told me to go and buy a phone, which you can pay me back for by the way."
"You bought a phone!"
"Yeah, i've already spent 2oo dollars and I've only been here 24 hours. I had to stay in the sketchiest place last night."
"I am so sorry, Babe, I honestly thought you were arriving today."
"No. I told you in the email I was arriving on Wednesday the 30th. Did you even read the email..."
"Well sort of glanced over it, I can't remember. I just always thought it was Thursday. Shit, I'm sorry..." Last time I had to pick her up from Heathrow airport I was 4 hours late and this is how I had tried to make it up to her, on time on the wrong day.
"Yeah you might want to call your parents. They are all going crazy back at home..."
~
"We're going to freeze, Soph!" Charlie coughed and lit up a cigarette.
"Fuck! I knew we'd left something more important than a camera charger. I guess we'll just have to wear all the clothes we have and cuddle up."
Laughing Shawn obviously liked the idea of that. "We can stop and buy one on the way if you want. I had to buy one on the way a couple of years ago."
"How much was it?"
"$50"
"Shit, can't we just buy some cheap blankets?" said Charlie
"Yeah, I guess. I know where we can find yous some. Yous are'nt going to sleep anyway..."he glanced back at Charlie, one eye brow raised, grinning.
"Do you want to keep your eyes on the road, mate!"
Later Charlie wouldn't be joking.

I don't want to be happy and inane right now, but sometimes the walls between you and those who do, aren't thick enough. And who ever thought doors would make a difference?! Weed and music the perfect. It sounds like the perfect combination nextdoor. Maybe it would be more productive just to cave in right now....than spend the next few hours trying to resist only to cave in when people have passed out.
Going back to our ride to Burning Man... This guy didn't look like a nut, but he was. I walked into the kitchen to rescue Nathalie from the slow churning of conversation I overheard and introduced myself. He was stooped over the counter as if he hadn't slept for days. He stood up to say hello, and shit, he was tall.
'Hey' he muttered, looking somewhere over my head.
"Shawn right?"
"Yep". I had spoken to him twice last night, but I don't really remember it. He had called to say he could take us, then called back about 1am saying "Nah girls, sorry but I gotta go tonight?"
"Why?"
"I just got to go, thats all, I can't be waiting around. It's already started..." He sounded shifty, so I didn't bother trying to persuade him otherwise.
"Dam...Ok, well do what you've got to do then. Thanks for the offer anyway."
I'd hung up, passed out again while mumbling to Charlie we had no way to get us and all our junk there...then the phone rang again sometime later.
"Its Shawn. I'm still in the bay. I will pick you up at 8, ok." This guy has to be on something.
"Sure, sure," And so i knew it was Shawn, but I asked anyway, as you do.
"So you know Tom?"
"Tom?"
"Yeah, Tom. He said he knew someone who could give us a ride"
"Nah, I don't know anyone called Tom."
"So how come you have our number?"
"My friend gave me your number, and told me to call you because you needed a ride."
"Ok. Well...are you sure that wasn't Tom?"
"Yeah..."
"Well, how did he get your number?"
"He got it off Craigs list." I thought he was the one cracked out, but it turns out I was.
Of course! We had put an ad up 2 nights ago in Guatemala, and completely forgot. I needed to sleep, but we were on our way to a place where you don't sleep for days on end.

What I am trying to say about success is that you invent something like the nuclear atom bomb - you hold that knowledge that you discovered and you are responsible for it. So sometimes if you lose sight in your discoveries- to what end- and simply lose yourselves in the throes of your exploration you may end up finding out something you wish you never knew and forever condemn yourself to that burden. Like the question 'Did the man who invented atomic bombs commit suicide?'

http://www.pandab.org/who-invented-the-atomic-bomb.html

Having given birth to the monster of the atomic bomb Szilard felt a responsibility to prevent its being used. Towards the end of the war, he organized his fellow scientists and made several attempts to get to Roosevelt and then Truman to prevent the Atomic bomb being dropped on Japan. Later the army wanted to put all atomic research under its control. Again, Szilard fought the establishment and organized scientists to lobby Congress to prevent that from happening. The result was the founding of the Atomic Energy Commission which put most of the control of nuclear power in civilian hands. Szilard’s biographer told me that “If Szilard had failed to get the A-bomb under civilian control, it is likely we would have used it against Russia before 1950.

At the moment Milton Freidman's economic theories advocating a laissez-faire free market , promoting government deregulation and privatization is being tested and we have long seen the suffering that has come at the hands of this form of economic policy first adopted by neo-liberal conservatives such as Thatcher and Reagan. Now this idea is not only being undermined by government bail out interventions as it has been many times before by those governments who claim to support it but we are seeing its ruin felt by those who've so far benefited most from the capitalist system. What they fail to understand is that the golden rule of the free market that levels out competition, cuts down those at the top as well as those at the bottom...

Men who like coffee

Joe who owned the small coffee shop on Lavender Row in East Village was spending more time there than necessary, despite the fact he'd recently made huge efforts to have most of the shifts covered so he could enjoy some time off lately. Now, as life would have it, he was spending all that free time at the coffee shop. The employers, a little confused, were doing there best to do the best they could at their job, assuming this was a transitional trust phase Joe was going through, since he used to run the whole place on his own. Joe on the other hand was playing up to this presumed rationale for his constant presence through out the day, although he couldn't care two capuccino's and a latte for wiling away his hours checking up on everything. In fact he hated the fact he was there everyday, it was getting slightly awkward. Although there was one excuse. He had to come in at least once to make his usual and to make the usuals for the regulars just as they always liked it in the morning.
There was old man Yachin who had to have the grains ground in front of him to a specific size, he once disgruntled and unshaven exclaimed to Ellie, who covered the morning shifts.
" You don't do it like that you have to hold the grinder at a certain angle and for 12 seconds. Where's Joe? Joe knows."
Ellie exasperated from failed attempts to get it right on his first morning shift ended up having to call Joe in to work, to help with all these personalized particularities and peculiarities people where demanding. He had no idea people could be so pedantic about their coffee. Then there were the 10 or so contract laborers who all wanted double espresso shots on the dot of 8 when they came in to work on the hospital under reconstruction across the road. Commuters by the dozen filed in and out in an orderly fashion always on schedule to catch a bus, tube or train and so expected their order to be executed in the same exact manner that they walked in and made it. Ellie was alarmed at the pace of things in this tiny inconspicuous coffee shop, and had a hard time from customers who didn't like any threat to their routine, as if how their coffee was made was the last grip on control they had in their day. Especially since the rumours of recession actually made newspaper headlines, there were no allowances for coffee not up to the usual standards. So Joe's habit of turning up everyday was a huge relief to Ellie.
Joe wished the opposite, he was sick of the place since it seemed like he had spent most of his waking hours there since he bought the shop off an old retiring italian couple 4 years ago, but he couldn't help himself. He was falling in love. He sat on his laptop at his favorite table all day, looking as if he was seeing to very important admin, just to be near the person he was bursting to shower with affection. Today tensions where even more strained because of the tiny incident last night which on waking suddenly seemed mammoth, dramatized by the memory in daylight hours rather than the sweeping happy experience it was last night.

Market day

Saturday Farmers Market...

Those little kids who just stare at you with an abandoned fearless look are going to do one of two things next, smile or cry. I wish I could remember how we reasoned whether that person was going to make us start bawling or burst into smiles.  I feel like they are far more intelligent than any grown being in judging someone's true intention. They can see right in to the heart of people. They don't buy it when people are pretending to have fun.

One cocky little kid today who acted a lot bigger than her size, persistently taunted my co-worker Colin with - 

"What you doing? What you doing? What you Doing? What you doing?" With no room for an answer. I start laughing until the mum buts in and tells her to stop it..

"But Mum I want to know what he's doing?"....And then again "What you doing? What you doing? What you doing?"

"I'm selling vegetables" Colin attempts to be heard, but she doesn't stop to register and goes on..I expect the next question would have been "Why? Why? Why?..

Children can intimidate even the hardest man into giving in I swear.

just because

Today I saw a world with no horizon as the ocean was a calm reflection of the pearly haze that seemed to sink right into the water without touching it...
Aside from that I am realizing with everything in life there is a catch...
Not just in the day to day dilemma's and decisions to do one thing and miss out on another - battle of the mind etc.
But in particular the big theorists whose ideas really matter and are even pursued worldwide eventually get a kick in the face at some point, when the groundbreaking discovery soon gets crumpled under times talons. It either becomes redundant which is the best you can hope for or the delusion in its ideology gradually reveals itself and it fails at our suffering expense.
So don't be too clever... unless you are strong enough not to argue when you fall.
Honourable success is the awareness that what you achieve, as much you will lose.
You know the time to let go of what you once believed in, with the dignity of someone responsible for the idea coming into existence and hence its passing out of existence. I guess you could hope to die before that happens...
As Donald Rumsfeld said about Milton Friedman.
“Milton is the embodiment of the truth that ideas have consequences.”
And many unforeseen at that. Lets hope pride on the part of the believer and habit on the part of the follower doesnt get in the way of accepting that some ways belong to one day and not another, moving on...

This is it...

Its taken a while to go world wide writing web shmeg but it had to be done sooner or later, like facebook you eventually cave in despite all noble intentions held previously and often still claimed to be held. The I DON'T and WILL NEVER buy into all this reproduced mass flood of shit talk - like a persons emotional garbage dispenser available for viewing by the whole world...who thought anyone would want to do that. It feels similar to the whole world being able to peer into your trash and see what you devoured in just one week - or the amount that was left to go to waste - thats always bound to cause a stir, a shaking of the head and a sigh at all the excess of a privileged life. Well at least I recycle and efficiently dispose of my mental clogging, let lose into the infinite we-space to join the other freakish statements that hope one day to herald a new beginning, an epiphany of understanding for someone. Who knows the cause for this desire to be read but we all want to be understood or understood to defy understanding - one way or another - no one cares except the I in we.

Do I sound nihilistic?..It's not intentional, I am a wonderful person really and love to be told that - feel free at anytime.