I met Laron
a vagrant
on a freight train
When he offered me a blanket
I thought it was a trick
to steal from me.
When he turned down money and said
“you know me…I just ride trains”
as the train pulled away
to parts unknown
to him
I envisioned him in saffron robes
walking heal to toe.
Ironically
following the teachings of a man
whose teaching Laron didn't know.
I think of him often
wonder if I will ever see him again
would like
but don’t need to.
Wage is money given in exchange for work done. How much money one receives in exchange for said work is only related to the perceived value of that work and that perceived value is influenced by supply and demand and the persuasive power of either the wage earner or the wage giver. So how much money one gets in exchange for said or set work is only really related to bargaining power. So wage is really mainly related to bargain or persuasive power.
Value of any object is arbitrary and set by the perceived value to the buyer and the seller and is nearly infinitely variable as the surrounding variables change. A talented bargainer can often get what he wants for less than what it cost to produce said item. And sellers often extract hundreds or even thousands of times actual cost to produce and transport.
Value is always simply a perceived commodity. and value can usually be manipulated by a skilled buyer or seller.
So the relationship of money as a medium that society has agreed upon to represent the value of work or objects is a counterfeit concept.
The only relevant elements are the perception and power of the individual in relation to things or work and money.
My own personal relationship with money is problematic because I think that people are more important than things and that money is just barely a thing
When one spends money one should weigh the value of the thing purchased against the proportional relationship between the money available in the moment and the immediate foreseeable future, and ones needs in relation to ones surroundings.
Should I gloss that further? Maybe later
My brother Rick emailed me a link from a random website he happened upon, that led to this picture, taken by a stranger.. I did not know that it was taken when it happened, but I am so proud I remember standing on “the soapbox” once... people were fomenting about how "the Constitution says we have the right to have any gun we want" I got up and complained that I was not allowed to have large artillery like an M-60 Patton Tank, that the Constitution says it is my right... I stopped short of saying I wanted a personal nuke... I mean really, I’d only use it responsibly, for personal defense.
anyway, I was busy being a pirate.
But I’m not a full time Pirate, those are my aspirations, Once again I want to get on the road… just heard about two guys who took a bus to Baghdad, a friend called to ask about New Zealand, she’s going there for a month, and other friends are in Eritrea, Dubai, Korea, Cambodia, Butan …I’m so jealous I want I want I want…and why not…
…SO yes me mattie I am the pirate, and I can’t let this slander persist. I don’t haunt that land lubbers fiasco in the land called Disney…years ago...word came to me of pirates in California and I went looking... , no pirates, then I heard about Pirates in this land of Disney and set sail, but alas…they are not real pirates, people in costume and puppets. Argh… I wanted to vent my rage at the offence and pillage away but there where children... I pillaged at the Venice beach instead.
A couple of weeks ago I did get/have to hitchhike 10 or so miles in southern Utah near Zion. I love it thumb out at the mercy of strangers. Alone on the road, but my little secret? I had on $600 shoes and $400 jeans and am yet still a Bum.
If that's not pirate then I don't know what pirate is.
My friends used to call our house to talk to my mother and not me. What was she doing? Stealing my friends? I guess they all thought she was their friend too. They were right, no question.
Two years ago I found out that my Blood Pressure was 160 over 120 (it is supposed to be much closer to 120 over 80) and the doctor put me on meds, which brought it down. I check it every so often to keep track. They said that I was starting to damage my heart.
when I checked my BP 106 over 57... I cut my meds in half... three days ago I stopped taking them altogether...today 130 over 78...
who knew I was so out of shape, one would think it would show up in shape. and who knew that exercise worked so fast
People are selfish and stupid. Me and you included. We can’t help it, it’s how we were built. But the worst part about it all is that we have this inner dialogue that we maintain with ourselves that says that the way we see the world is just the way it is. But listen, I think that if you know that little secrete then all can be better. See… if one knows that their world view is horribly biased then one can adjust to that fact and roll with it all.
So yes I’m saying that everything is subjective, and yes we can all live with that. We all already do just without acknowledging it. You see that no mater what belief structure you adhere to you have tweaked in your own way, you do not believe the exact same thing as anyone else… so your world view is already subjective you just kinda decided which outside influences to let control you (I do not think that the decision process is as simple as “deciding” like one decides on a shoe purchase.) One of the pernicious parts of all this is that you usually do not know when you chose or why. The mechanisms are complex and hidden, fear being a big motivator but not the only one. But at some point in your life you set upon these ideas and they are now what you have.
A couple of weeks ago we got a call for some help on with a fashion shoot that a friend of Matthew’s was doing, it was for some LA fashion magazine, I forget the name. They wanted to shoot in the desert and with hot air balloons.
About mid-day the wind picked up. Then it started to rain. For the last shots were doing a high wind inflation and launch. (sane people would not attempt something like this.) 
With the basket tied off to the back of a Chevrolet Suburban we did the cold inflation, then applied heat, and the wind picked up, the balloon started to drag the truck, I had a hol
d of the parachute ( a rope connected to a rapid deflation valve in the top of the balloon.) and the tie down rope broke. I pulled, Steiger grabbed on to the rope too and we picked up speed ad started to go up. We let go and watched the balloon go away, except Mo still had hold of the crown line (a rope that goes to the top of the balloon for stability.) This was his first day working with a hot air balloon and as he was getting dragged away we were yelling “let go, let go” and he was yelling back “I can stop it” he let go because he couldn’t.
It only went about a miles before cooling off enough to drag the basket and fill it up with dirt and another mile before it stopped.
And this is the final product as published (ok the pictures are much bigger with better color in the magazine .) (see the feet sticking up, I carried her there and placed her in the basket like that)
I’m sitting in an orange leather recliner looking out my bedroom window, the whole wall is glass, on the 23rd floor of the Panorama Tower, in the distance are the mountains, but right over there are the train tracks, from one horizon to the next. Ok they are not visible all the way to the vanishing point but I still see it. I’ve been here for about 4 months, the last time I was here in Vegas I arrived on those tracks in the back of a 48 (a type of freight train car.)
The other night I went to a show in a stretch Limo and but long for the train
