Thank God For That

Stuff

*Mad Max IV: Fury Road is in pre-production in Sydney, Australia. It will take a year just to build the vehicles, which, though pieced together from old wrecks, must be both safe and high-performance due to the stunts that will be performed. Filming will take 50 weeks - an unprecedented length of time. The budget may reach $100 million. The story takes place a few years after Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. A 5-minute on-set interview with director George Miller, as well as 2 photos of movie vehicles (the V8 Interceptor is pictured above), can be found online. Mel Gibson will not star in this movie. The two main leads have been cast: Tom Hardy as Max Rockatansky, and Charlize Theron as the female lead. Filming begins August 2010.

*I've lost almost 20 pounds now, as I continue to experiment with an organic, high-nutrient diet.

*Some cool cat left London and moved to the British countryside, where he spent 3 weeks building a treehouse that he will live in for 6 months while living off the land. He spends about US$15 a week on purchases including ammo and paraffin, and hunts squirrels with a double barrel shotgun. Can't wait to read the book he's writing about the experience.

*Clocks "fall back" tonight.

*Happy Halloween!

LittleFoot

Had a fun and productive weekend at the homestead. In fact, there is now an official Friend of LittleFoot, who generously helped clear brush, and volunteered to join in future "work weekends". It was gratifying to have so much work done in so little time (two people appear to do more than twice the work of one person...if that makes any sense).

Projects for next Spring include:

• a Party Weekend
• delivery/installation of a roadside 2500 gallon water tank
• installation of a rain-catchment system for the cabin roof
• delivery/installation of a water tank for rain-catchment
• further clearing of forest undergrowth on the north side of the cabin
• renting an industrial grade wood chipper
• having a permitted burn
• cutting firewood

Long-term projects:

• build a loft in the cabin
• install a wood stove in the cabin
• fence off a garden
• build a treehouse

It's official: It takes 4.5 hours to drive to LittleFoot...food/rest/gas stops add on additional time.

The Age of the Dead

We live in the The Age of the Dead. Not in the George Romero "Dawn of the Dead" sense, but rather in the sense that we have lost touch with Nature, and in doing so have lost touch with our living roots. Western Civilization has spread across the globe, engulfing cultures everywhere in a wave of spiritless greed. We have built our society on machines and industrial technology. Machines are dead, and they produce dead things. They cannot synthesize life - at their best, they synthesize inorganic reproductions of organic things. The food we eat on a mass scale has been uniformly stripped of its nutritional value by machines - to the point that diseases such as cancer and heart disease are now accepted as normal, and are even anticipated and expected. Then when we fall prey to them, we rely on machines to fix us and artificially extend our life. We view the Earth - this planet which produced us - as a dead commodity to mine for riches. We are obsessed with the concept of "sanitizing", even as we pollute our world with inorganic trash of our own making.

This is one way of perceiving the world, but it is not the only way, nor is it a mature way. In truth, the Earth is alive and we are a part of its web of life. We can experience this, if we want to and if we try to. We CAN reconnect. We do this by changing our paradigm. CHANGE YOUR PARADIGM TODAY. START RIGHT NOW. How? By rekindling your sense of MYSTERY and ADVENTURE. Do whatever works for you. Eat real foods. Live in the wilderness. Meditate. Go on a zombie crawl. Commute by public transit. Garden. Read Carlos Castaneda. Live without money. Be homeless. Ride a bike. Get spiritual. Travel. Eat a fluffy cat. Pay off your debt. Talk to crazy people. Research UFO encounters. Watch 911 conspiracy videos. Set me up with your friend's hot friend. Ram your head thru a wall. Power your car with biodiesel. Subscribe to Fortean Times. Run from the law and don't get caught. Get high on expensive foreign herbs that turn your brain to jello. Fart outlandishly, publicly, violently. Fart again! Commit art. Break down your walls. Choose your own path. But refuse to live in The Age of the Dead. Don't be dead until you really die, and even then, do death YOUR way.

Now wake up, motherfucker.

LIVE.

Good Food

My favorite breakfast: Cold quinoa with unflavored goat's milk kefir and sprouted organic seeds on top. There is something about the combination of the soft quinoa with the liquid kefir and crunchy seeds, not to mention the combination of flavors, that is extremely satisfying. Need I mention that it's healthy? Oh - add a 1/4 - 1/2 cup finely chopped raw kale, cabbage and carrot on top also. Mmmmmm!

Minor Health Miracle

I restructured my diet about 3 months ago, cutting out wheat, flour, sugar, most red meat and processed foods, and replacing them with organic produce/vegetable juice, quinoa, raw dairy products including raw goats milk, and raw/live foods whenever possible. So far I have lost 15 pounds (down to 195 from 210). My gut is completely gone. The strangest aspect of this is that I never set out to lose weight or limit my calorie consumption, nor do I consider my new diet to be "dieting". My metabolism is simply functioning as it should. I eat eggs, raw cheese, whole milk, raw butter, and feel that these foods are extremely healthy and nourishing, BECAUSE of their calories and fat content.

My impetus for this dietary change? A statement made repeatedly by Penny Kelly in her book Robes: A Book of Coming Changes. "Manufactured food cannot sustain human life. It leads to sickness, disease and death." Ruminate on that one, folks.

The Proponent of Happiness

Last night I dreamt that General Petraeus of the United States Central Command was on a set in a vast government warehouse. Soldiers and technicians were crowded around the set, watching. He was in his digital BDUs, sitting in a Hummer. High-tech military hardware was strategically placed all around him. Kleig lights were blazing away, and the cameras began rolling. General Petreus looked out the window of his Hummer and said, loudly and with great force, "We keep building and buying more hi-tech equipment, thinking it will solve our problems." He got out of the car and strode out onto the bare set, looking directly into the camera. "I AM THE SOLUTION." I woke up a changed man.

Stuff

*Please read Penny Kelly's books, starting with Robes: A Book of Coming Changes. They rock. She rocks.

*Please read The SpiritWalker trilogy by whats-his-face. They are required reading. Do not hesitate. Buy them. Read them.

*Day 2 of the Juice Weasel Experiments, and I'm turning into a rocket-propelled vegetable. Drank 2 pints of deep green celery-tomato-leek-kale-cucumber-zucchini-carrot juice tonight...was as thick as a milkshake...I'm just about ready to jump to the moon. I'm expecting grass to sprout out of my face at any moment. Please be patient while I commune with my Inner Plant.

*On a health kick these days. Eating all organic food. Yogurt, live kraut, raw nuts, fruit, sprouted seeds, kefir, raw goats milk, raw veggies. Cut out wheat, sugar, red meat and most shit foods. Lost ten pounds, feeling more energetic, less blood sugar swings. 'Course I still drink coffee, eat out, drink beer and eat regular food. BUT, I'm 80% clean most of the time. Holy shit I'm ready to take on God. Oh yeah, been meditating a bit too. Kind of fun, brings back memories from my earlier days, when wonderful things happened when I closed my eyes.

*All Republicans should be spanked without mercy. Forever. By me.

*Got buzzed by a firefly today. Round and round he flew, me spinning in circles to watch. Made me think of JZ.

*Check out Inglourious Basterds and District Nine. Good oldies: Internal Affairs, Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead, The Dead Girl.

*Where to invest my hard-earned bucks? I have no idea. If I put them into STRIPS and foreign currency funds, they turn into electronic gibberish and I fear I'll lose them in the TV fuzz. But what is the point in having US dollars when they will probably be worthless soon? Hmmm...junk silver? Maybe. Oh yeah, and commodities that I need. I'll get my truck tuned up. Gotta stay generous, too. Never give that up. Cuz in the end, I plan to die naked, penniless and laughing. Gotta keep things in perspective.

Good night, amigos. Dream BIG. Dream well.