back in aspen

"Aspen is a place where absentee greed-heads are taking over the town like a pack of wild dogs, reducing the once proud local population to shame and degradation." HST

Well it's true old dogs, but I'm just not so sure how true anymore. The sludge is still thick and the vultures circle and the land rapers claw along doing ballet with Marilyn Marks. Now I've traveled a great deal in my little dream land existence, but I've never been to a town with nicer cops, mellower speed limits, quality pharmacies, smart, cool, intelligent workers who work their ass off to live in paradise and enjoy a life that many of the ridiculous third fourth and fifth home owners don't have a clue about. The elite of Aspen are not really the elite anyway. The Sushi Chefs of Aspen are the real celebrities, and I'd rather invite them home for drinks than somebody famous, unless of course that famous person showed up with some energy drinks which would make me an invincible Tour De France racer. No, it's pretty damn cool to be back in Aspen. I'm a tourist in my home town, and I really can't imagine going back to NYC where I moved this past spring. It's nice as far as monkey jungles go, but its not here. Aspen is a vortex of lunacy, magic, and the holiness of perfect manifestations of natural beauty. This valley, these surrounding forests and mountain ranges, these are the art of God. It's paradise, and damn it, people know it. Cream makes you fat, and if cream means money, then it's clear that the cream has risen to the top. We're way up at the top here in Aspen. We are Fat City, yet rich enough to stay thin. And the cream is creamy, especially on powder days. And the lunacy keeps out the riff raff, they only stand us a few months a year at most, and that's grand. Only true loons can stand the year round madness. I myself retreated to the city, I had lost my bearings. Aspen is Aspen is Aspen. It's not Ute City anymore. It's frequency is a slidge insane in a dirty little way, but it can be fun. The greed and selfish individualism is not making it the nice friendly little family environment we really want it to be though. Ute City is still here, only the name changed. We are still a tribe. We all look out for each other here. And everybody should be invited to the party. We need to get the old popcorn wagon back. We must not tolerate the abuses of drug enforcement. And yet I feel like i'm coming back to an even better town than I left. The vibe is good. The grass is green and clearly the rain has come. We have a bar named Mustang now and they have glorious outside seating on the mall and a band was playing there. I looked around and it almost felt like we were back in the 80's when everyone was just a little happier to be alive because the threat of nuclear holocaust from all out war with the soviet union kept people humble, thankful, and folks were just happy to be alive and celebrate Ferris Bueller's day off. Everybody is in a good mood. It's all good. Get your ski pass. That whole skiing in Aspen thing, it's pretty good. If we want to get on Ski Co's ass about something we should address their lovely connection to the Military Industrial Complex. In addition to helping us slide down mountains the ownership also manufactures weapons of mass destruction. I heard that our own country might have some stashed away. But in Aspen things are pretty damn good. Even the exploited of Aspen, the workers who live far down valley and commute up here to work often enduring hours of traffic. Even some of these folks I have heard, are making top dollar in the thriving drug trade. So I just have to shout out to the Ski co and say, I understand. It is what it is. People have to ski and people have to die. I'd rather be on one of your chairlifts than on the receiving end of one of your missiles. I don't even live here anymore, and i'm a privileged rat. I guess I'm just floating and Fat City is my life raft. New York is a quiet life in comparison, with plenty of large buildings, beautiful, fantastic, rainbow people marching in lemming perfection and smiles. But it's an island. Manhattan island doesn't have one beach. There are gates all around it. It's a concentration camp for people and a small number of concrete adapted animals. You can't barely even find a place to swim, and the dogs aren't even allowed in the fountains. To get out you have to go over a bridge or under water in a tunnel, it's lovable madness. But in Aspen, tourists like me, year round locals, folks who just come a few months a year and spend a whole lotta cash and don't barely ski because they are getting a massage, it's all good. They are not in the lift line in front of me. We're all friends here. We're a family. People from all over moved here and we are like a nice little dysfunctional drug addicted year round camp, some come and go, but nothing really changes even while everything changes. And then of course when we take a break we all meet in AA, where our sober friends are waiting for us and self-riotously 13th stepping each other. It's paradise. Aspen Anonymous. It sure can be a small town sometimes. But ain't it grand? Sure is nice to be back for a visit. We're just here to enjoy living in paradise. It's really OK. Sometimes we complain too much. But what the hell else is there to do in paradise? We aren't writing letters about the gang warfare, it's just ticket prices. Benny the Blade, working it, he'll have a season pass I guarantee. Johny Aspen, on the cruise and living the dream, he'll be on the slopes with a pass around his neck. We're a ridiculous lavish shi shi rip off town, but sometimes I wonder if that's not our saving grace. Even when this was Ute City we were rolling in Silver and had a number of whore houses to boot, but none as expensive as the Caribou Club. But why do I love all the people here so much? I can't help it. Aspen is my family. We are all on the same boat baby, no matter what our bank accounts say. I've had many a wealthy individual buy me marvelous afternoon extravaganzas at The Little Nell, and that's nice. I'm a Fat City baby. Somehow things do trickle down here. It's a pretty darned good life in this little bastion of nice. The ridiculously rich are often quite charming. And they rarely ski the best lines. It all works out and the ridiculousness is inevitable. So Aspen is a big family and they were new members and they were loaded but they lived here year round and were active members of the community, not just temporary vacationers who fly in their friends from LA and New York once or twice a year (not that I have any place to say that there is anything wrong with that). Sure we're a luxury resort, but we're a luxury resort family. Ute City will always be here. This will always be holy ground. Long after Aspen is gone, and nothing is left of the name but the trees, the spirit of this valley will be here as it has always been and always will be. Those of us who Aspen has become a part of understand. It doesn't matter where you go, you're always here. I don't read the New York Times every day in New York City, but I read the Aspen Daily News almost every damn day. It's not exactly the spiritual summering ground of the Ute Indians anymore is it? But it's the cocaine summering ground of the rich and famous. It's an orgy of drugs, sex, and happiness, but it is still holy ground and your high may be enhanced as a result so be grateful. Many of these crazy old rich people are absolutely a pleasure to party with. I mean heck, I was raised by them. But at least they lived here year round. I come from the greed heads, I don't want to lie, but they were Texans, and they were just as Gonzo as fireworks baby. My Grandparents raised me, and they were Gonzos. They didn't do psychedelics but they were madmen, they were the lunatics of the lunatics. The savage that creeps in the night may also ski powder in the morning. We are the natives, and like any good tribe or nation, assimilation is the key. Welcome to Aspen. We have epic world class skiing on four mountains that are almost never crowded because we are the town at the end of the Rainbow. We are the top of the pyramid. It's Caddyshack baby. The employees have more fun. This is Aspen. This is what they planned. And we are living off the Fat of Fat City. Ute City is gone. They raped but it sure keeps the mountains uncrowded. I mean ski passes sure are cheaper at Vail, and the rest of those mountains. And try going skiing at Christmas at any of them, lift lines are an hour long. Gapers surround and you're slaloming in and out of city skiers. Seems to me these things all add up somehow. We're really fired up about this Ski Co pass adjustment, and fine. The workers in Aspen that I know are pretty damn happy. I'm always the first to get crazy and complain about the idiocy of the status quo, but i'm really trying to see things as being already perfect; even in the midst of its endless evolution. Everything could be perfect and vibrating in the joyous symmetry of chaos as the universe spins out into infinity rotating and all the molecules dance in the gentle stream of galaxies. Which brings me back to Aspen and the Ski pass changes. You know what? It ain't that bad. It may be an unspoken policy, but if we are twice as expensive as everywhere else, then we might just be half as crowded. And my darling Aspenites, could we ask for anything more? If you want Aspen to be like X-games year round, then please leave.

Pot Store in Aspen?

Strange days indeed. A legal capitalization of dope in Fat City. Click title to read more from the Aspen Daily News.

World Population Projected to Reach 7 Billion by Next Year

Well, I'd say it's worrisome that we are adding another billion people every 12 years the last few decades, and it looks like we'll do it again over the next twelve years. So many of us are proving rather taxing on the earth. But at the same time who knows what's really going on here? Maybe there will be a huge catastrophic event which wipes out 5 or 6 billion people. In such a case, a giant population would be a God-send. So who knows? It's all perspective I guess. I hate to admit that. I mean I'd like to go on a good rant about the idiocy of man, and how ridiculous we are for not taking better care of the earth. Giant human populations=environmental degradation. According to me, to my limited mind, my limited knowledge, according to the simple logic of violent extraction of materials and ruthless modern gardening techniques, we are being pretty brutal to Mother Earth. It's not all roses and strawberries. But maybe she can handle it. Maybe we are just doing what we are supposed to.

According to the Teaching of Buddha:

"People cherish the distinction of purity and impurity; but in the nature of things, there is no such distinction, except as it rises from false and absurd images in their mind.

In like manner people make a distinction between good and evil, but good and evil do not exist separately.

People naturally fear misfortune and long for good fortune; but if the distinction is carefully studied, misfortune often turns out to be good fortune and good fortune to be misfortune. The wise man learns to meet the changing circumstances of life with an equitable spirit, being neither elated by success nor depressed by failure. Thus one realizes the truth of non-duality.

Therefore, all the words that express relations of duality -- such as existence and non-existence, worldy passions and true-knowledge, purity and impurity, good and evil -- none of these terms of contrast in one's thinking are expressed or recognized in their true nature. When people keep free from such terms and from the emotions engendered by them, they realize Sunyata's universal truth. Just as the pure and fragrant lotus flower grows out of the mud of a swamp rather than out of the clean loam of an upland field, so from the muck of worldly passions springs the pure enlightenment of Buddhahood."

We've been mucking up the world for awhile now, so maybe we are really on our way to enlightenment and visions of the pure land, heaven on earth, Zion, and 7 billion human manifestations of the Creator caring for Mother Earth. That sounds nice. Just for today, the glass shall be half-full.

total recall

So it's all true, and nothing is true. That's pretty much what it comes down to. That's about all I have to say. I say a whole lotta else. But it's all just jabber, because who am I to say how it is. It's just one interpretation of one man who has spent his life reading between the lines. It's all been said. There is nothing new to say. It is the way we think it is. Our perceptions define our reality. A thousand years from now already exists a thousand years from now. We're changing it right now.

The Captain of Ferris Dies

We salute you captain Hughes. Thank you for giving us Ferris. Always Save Ferris old boy. Ed Rooney salutes you old boy. The Sausage King of Chicago is rolling in his grave. Love to you gifted sir. Rest in Peace.

It's a full moon and I walked up 8th avenue
Warm summer night
Neon lights and a dim threatening quiet
shivers of decay
asking
Where is the madness?
Is this utopia?
This clip of gin and silent decrepitude
I want a revolution
but what's the point?
Is everything already perfect?
Sure is weird out there
An odd perspective
looking out from this
illusion of separation

America is a gelatinous playground. Ripe for a luncheon picnic.

little break

She light dawns eye
river shy moon
claw rout river guide
table claw rule
clam sauce
french mouth
loon
people on the lazy trail
walking back toward Jickity lane