Restlessness
by Skald

Always this obssession with freedom...
Always this drive towards simplicity..
Always this battle with boredom...
Always....
-ALWAYS
--This restlessness

Driving me...
Driving me to move, move, move,
Keep moving.

America
by Skald

America despises the likes of us... grinds us down and crushes us.

For this is the age of business
-- busyness,
Of money, speed, power, prestige, conflict.

There is no room for lazy dreamers
-- no use, in fact, for laziness at all.

Exile is our only option,
and so exiled I am.

Arrival
by Skald

A rivulet of rotting dog meat reaches my nose as I eat my noodles-- squatted on a plastic stool-- breathing in tuk tuk exhaust.

This has become my evening ritual: a 50cent meal on a roadside by the river-- a plate full of noodles with a side of Bangkok stench.... Chao Praya flowing through my veins-- spices & filth in my nose-- eyes awash in jumbled markets-- gut bathed in chilis.

I have arrived: living the life of a squalid expat- guts twinging with each breath of dogmeat... a stench that evokes memories of dysentaric anorexia, IVs, vomit, long nights spent clutching sides, the tinny taste of antibiotics on the tongue: the anti-hero of a Conrad/Kipling vision.. white man drowning in the tropics.

I push these thoughts from my mind and shift on the stool... hoping to escape the aromatic stream... hunker down over the plate, fork in left hand, chopsticks in right.
I lift my eyes and take in the spectacle in the park across the street:

Aerobics in the park. Movement.
Relentless metronome movement. Dancers, river, tug, and headlights pulsing to an unheard beat. Bending branches under the summer breeze- also in sync. Slow breath, heaving chest-- in sync.

Breasts gliding above hips, Floodlights in my eyes, slow saunter of sandaled feet,
spreading numbness in toes and ankles, sinus ache, the lillies' surge,
--in sync.

In sync and in tune. In sync, in tune, in harmony and intertwined.

The scratch of an ear, the taste of fear, and a Black beast bouncing through the dancing crowd,
Nothing missing, nor in excess.
--Moonless night.

This is a relaxed awakening... a cleansing of the eyes with each evening downpour..
- Purple clouds roll over skyscrapers,
-Ferns wave to the impending rain.
On the far side of the park, the river surges:

Slow tug
Pulls black barge
Through brown water
-Lillies dance

I am in love.... love the stench, love the movement, love the filth, love the perpetual reminders that I am alive... Love this international freak zone for the lost, the lonely, the lazy, the wild-- all those refugees, periodic and permanent, seeking escape from the drudgery of the Work Machine.

Thats why I'm here: To escape wage slavery I will endure heat, filth, stench, and disease. I will endure scorn, dismay, disrepute, and exile.

All pretense, all claim to respectability, has slipped away.

I am the eye around which this storm of Bangkok revolves.

Hobopoets
by Skald

Caravans of vandwelling shamans-- roaming the wilds and back roads-- following the highway routes... in search of satoris, baraka, wisdom...

Hobopoet sanctuaries-- Mad Houser huts tucked behind walls of green-- Shinto-esque shrines... secret gathering points.....

Far-east pilgrim routes-- Clan homes-in-exile -- far flung bases of poets and artists-- escape portals.... save havens from the crushing conformity of America....

Moving and living in the fissures of the suburban monolith...

Invisible and free...

Walkers in the spirit realms.

Free at Last
by Skald

Hot Georgia sun overhead, baking my shaved head as I stroll the square in downtown Gainesville. Slow and easy gait as I make my way to the library.... a smile springs to my face.... I notice the trees rustling in the breeze... I feel the heat and wetness in the air. Im done with work-- nothing to do and nowhere to go.

It happended about a month ago... my mind finally caught up with circumstances. Suddenly I have discovered Thoreau's breakthough.... life is not a hardship... my life has become a past time. Im working 19 hours a week yet have plenty of money. The sun is out, the days are long, the nights are cool and tinged with magic. I arise early to meditate. In the afternoons I run in the languid heat beneath pines and oaks... Athena bounding along with me. When Im finished I am drenched in sweat... a purifying, cleansing sweat. My life is filled with abundance.

These are the rewards of the Hobopoet life... the long sought rewards.
I have time to sit, time to contemplate, time to notice. I have become a real human being.

Military Tents
by Rom Publius

I lived in a wall tent for 8 months in the early 1970's and didn't even have a stove in it and it was quite homelike. I had a dear aunt at the time who worried about me so much, my Aunt Gen. She was half Native American but I guess she worried I didn't have a clue perhaps. One day her husband, my Uncle Alvie showed up. He brought me something as a gift but I knew he was checking my tent/home out for Aunt Gen. Alvie grew up in the north woods at the beginning of the 20th century so he knew primitive very well. I showed him around and we sat and had tea (not a lady's tea party--men in the north
woods commonly drink tea). I think we played some cribbage too.

I had a carpeted floor and the walls were hung inside with colorful blanket material. You know, I don't think Alvie wanted to leave that day and my Aunt Gen never worried about me living there again. There's no reason why a larger wall tent can't be very house-like, comfortable, and even cozy. When I lived in my tent, about a dozen hippie tents formed a big circle around a central social area. It was like an atchen'tan or camp site, for example like a Gypsies' family unit of many tents might have camped in 100 or more years ago. It was really nice and furthermore we had modern conveniences. Many people hooked electricity up in their tents and some even hooked up running water. I persoanlly prided myself for not needing that and was quite comfortable with mantle lamps and if I was planning to winter over, I'd have gotten a stove for it too.

Handmade Houses
by Jo Rebeka

The discussion of alternative building techniques and cob building in particular inspired me to post these links about of a project I helped to work on, building a tiny house for my friend Sally out "light straw clay." This material is a straw/clay mixture that is about 90% straw. It uses 1/3 less straw than a comparable straw bale dwelling, and because the bales are cut open and the straw fluffed and mixed with a thin mud, the resulting material to be packed into the forms is pretty light and easy to handle, like a wheelbarrow full of coleslaw. The insulation value is better than a straw bale house. The entire exterior and interior MUST be plastered with adobe or similar material. The exposed straw clay walls would not be durable at all in weather.

About half the crew was middle-aged gals who were not in particularly great shape. We divided the tasks by fitness levels, and a few parts were challenging (mostly building the frame) .... but, overall, it took a lot of energy but not a lot of strength to do the work. The bulk of the project was completed working 3 or 4 weekend days per month, by a crew of no more that 4 or 5 people on any given day. The thrill of helping build a home with a group of friends is something everyone should experience at least once in life. If you don't want to build your own home, look around for someone who wants help building theirs. Or even volunteeer for Habitat for Humanity, though their building porjects are probably not so alternative-minded. I guarantee you won't regret it!

These pages on my site show interior and exterior shots when the house was bascially complete.

http://www.homestead.com/artsite/sallyshouse.html

Cheap Housing
by Rom Publius


Something I've been thinking a lot about is to build a gher or yurt and cover it with inexpensive canvas painter's drop cloths like the ones you can buy in Home Depot, Lowe's, or some such place. I like "native" methods of building these like the one I , rather than the designs made usually by Americans using construction lumber and steel cable.

For a more primitive design, I figure I can find all the wood I would need in a typical alder thicket. In New England there are black alders which is in the pea family and grows down in boggy soil near brooks. Typically, it only gets about 12 foot tall or so and grows in a dense stand of clumps. I figure on using a draw knife to peel them and remove branches and to thin an area near the base for bending. If cut and trimmed right on the spot and then bent and tied
with cord to hold the bend until it dries a bit, this would give me the needed roof members in a few weeks or less, depending on how hard I work. The side latice work pieces are even simpler--just use smaller pieces that are not long enough for roof pieces.

I figure if I bought land, I could set up a tent and, while summering in that tent, make a gher or yurt in this way with materials found right on that site. No real purchase necessary for the framing and the canvas would cost about $100 or so using dropcloths. Ghers typically have regular wood burning stoves in them and the steppes of Central Asia are very windy and often hit -40 F. or less so I'm sure these are sturdy, and snug. I think perhaps I would keep the size smaller--no more than the size of a 2 car garage. Then the original tent, as well as tarp structures, could be used for storage purposes. I'll have the contents of two houses to store when Ileigha and I buy land.

I doubt if the comfort level in winter would be equal to that of most American homes in this design however due to the lack of insulation but air space is an effective insulator and Native American tepees had an onan or some such which typically was a tent within a tent. This gave the occupants two comfort zones. In the onan was very cozy and outside that but inside the tepee was where one would typically cook etc. or do things that one does when up and dressed.

I figure an inner zone of comfort could easily be set up similarly and a steady source of heat for the whole structure could even be provided by using a vented kerosene heater or an oil stove. That way it wouldn't freeze up before one got home from work or some such. I used to heat with wood and it was good but I was tied down to having to build 2 fires a day and I had 6 inches of insulation in the walls and floor and 12 in the ceiling.

Wasteland
quotes from Joseph Campbell

And what is the nature of a wasteland? It is a land where everybody is living an inauthentic life, doing as other people do-- doing as you're told, with no courage for your own life.

To live an authentic life, Take your wisdom from your own experience. Because in thinking, the majority is always wrong.

Any life career that you choose in following your bliss should be chosen with the sense that nobody can frighten me off this thing.

"The Revolution" is Already Here
by Hakim Bey

History, materialism, monism, positivism, and all the "isms" of this world are old and rusty tools which I don't need or mind anymore. My principle is life, my end is death. I wish to live my life intensely for to embrace my life tragically.

You are waiting for the revolution? My own began a long time ago! When you will be ready (God, what an endless wait!) I won't mind going along with you for awhile. But when you'll stop, I shall continue on my insane and triumphal way toward the great and sublime conquest of the nothing! Any society that you build will have its limits. And outside the limits of any society the unruly and heroic tramps will wander, with their wild & virgin thoughts--they who cannot live without planning ever new and dreadful outbursts of rebellion!

I shall be among them!

And after me, as before me, there will be those saying to their fellows: "So turn to yourselves rather than to your Gods or to your idols. Find what hides in yourselves; bring it to light; show yourselves!"

Because every person; who, searching his own inwardness, extracts what was mysteriously hidden therein; is a shadow eclipsing any form of society which can exist under the sun! All societies tremble when the scornful aristocracy of the tramps, the inaccessibles, the uniques, the rulers over the ideal, and the conquerors of the nothing resolutely advances.

So, come on iconoclasts, forward!

"Already the foreboding sky grows dark and silent!"

Illegal Walking
by Skald


While living in Greenville, SC I would often go for late -night walks... just out for a stroll. I was stopped SEVERAL times by police... for walking on the sidewalk! They questioned me, demanded ID, and ran a check each time. They were rude and belligerent. The thing is, I look like a clean cut Aryan. Just imagine the treatment I'd have gotten if I'd had long hair, or dark skin, or ratty clothes, or a beard,.. or looked Arab or Seikh or Gypsy or Latino. This sort of thing happens all the time, but is never reported. Instead, the news is filled with scary black men & Latinos to keep the suburbanites afraid and docile! And just watch prime-time TV sometime... look at the overwhelming number of Cop shows: Law & Order (with multiple versions), CSI, NYPD Blue, etc.... all
filled with scary poor people, helpless victims, and, of course, the tough, noble police-- the only force protecting us all from the Barbarian hordes of homeless, drug dealers, gangsters, cultist, serial killers,.....

I thought Micheal Moore captured that sense of American paranoia quite well in "Bowling for Columbine".

There is an optimistic flip side to all this-- all this paranoia and fear is artificially created. For most folks there is a natural fear of the unknown and the strange... but it takes vast amounts of propaganda (aka American TV, Nazi disinformation,..) to amplify this normal suspicion and truly terrify/enrage large numbers of people. Which is to say, I still think most folks are basically decent (though willfully ignorant and gullible). Truthfully, most suburbanites have never met a homeless person (or poor black person,....) and have never been a victim of violent crime. Their fears have NOTHING to do with actual experience-- they are a media phenomenon. Insulated in their suburbs, they are living in a TV world of spooks and psychopaths and have no idea what the world is really like.

I'm always amused when I see a homeless person approach some suit & tie couple. The poor guy shuffles up, head low, looking pitiful.... spouting out some bullshit story about his car being broken. Annoying? Maybe. But what's so funny (and tragic) is the look of startled terror on the rich folks faces.... looks of panic... looks of fear. They practically run from the guy! I'm sure they're thinking he'll pull out a shotgun any minute!

I've noticed they react similiarly to people with tatoos, black or Latino males, and anyone who looks scruffy. So while these folks may imagine themselves as corporate masters of the universe,... they are some of the most terrified and emasculated souls ever to walk the earth.

For this reason, I think Thoreau was right-- you don't really own your money-- it owns you,.. and in the process corrupts you into a petty, ignorant, fearful husk of a human.

So, despite our lack of power & money, I'd say we have the better end of the deal .

Storage Units: Cheap Housing
by Skald

On the Vagabond Too site there has been alot of discussion about living in storage units. The "rent" on such units is far cheaper than on an apartment... and there are no utility costs.

Here are some of the suggestions/ideas that were discussed:

*Stealth is very important. Most owners do not allow folks to live in the units or to run a business from them... although some are more lax than others. It's best to avoid the more upscale units... which have security cameras, night-time staff, guards, etc... Better to find a place with minimal staff and no cameras. Do look for a place that has power outlets in the units... and/or a light. Also, some complexes have on-site bathrooms. Climate-control is a nice advantage in climates with extreme temperatures.

Be very discrete about coming and going... do so when the staff is off-duty. NEVER admit to living in the unit, even if its obvious. Consider a non-gated complex.

Park your vehicle away from gates and office windows.

*Modify the inside... suggestions: Build a loft in order to maximize space. Consider building a "box withing a box".... ie. an insulated "box" within the storage unit. The insulation & extra walls will provide a better climate and will also cut down on noise and light coming from your space.

*Make sure that nobody can lock you in the unit or the complex and thus trap you.

*Take time when shopping for a storage unit.... look at lots of places and try to find the best combination of stealth and comfort.

Boxes
by Alan Watts

Altough we all realize that monotony is boring, almost every form of industrial work- banking, accounting, mass-producing, service- is monotonous, and most people are paid for simply putting up with monotony, for arranging things in boxes, for recording these arrangements on squared and columned sheets of paper, or for welding and drilling innumerable I-beams together for making colossal concrete or glass-walled boxes wherein myriads of others can pursue these dreary routines. For What? For absolutely necessary but abstract and inedible money, wherewith to purchase a box in which to live, another box in which to go about (look at almost any brand of car), and to acquire boxed food which tastes more and more as if its constituent particles were boxes instead of cells.

The tycoons, politicians, and gangsters who manage this operation, whether in Russia, China, West Germany, or the United States, are not happy. By and large they are vulgar men who do not know chalk from cheese, who know very well what they hate and fear, but haven't the least idea of what they love-- except statistical records called money. Some of them have celebrated libraries of pornography. Some have plush harems of frigid girls. Some have yachts and jet planes in which to go somewhere just like the place from which they began. Some have great stables of horses for the merely mathematical purpose of betting on races.

They live in constant fear of thievery, revolution, competition, impotence, cancer, and rising taxation.

The trouble with our rich and powerful people is no so much that they are wicked, but that they do not enjoy themselves. A square can't have a ball, and the great problem of philosophy is not so much to square the circle as circle the square. For our religions are uptight and anal-retentive. Our religious observances consist almost entirely of talk-- "about it and about"-- about obeying commandments and about believing in verbalized statements or creeds presuming to define the ineffable. Virtually nothing is done to encourage any form of silent, nonverbal meditation or yoga wherein the eternal is experienced and not merely discussed. It is a terrible and notorious truth of history that no one has ever been taught how to love by a sermon, for all sermonically based love is simply disguised guilt, which arouses resentment in the recipient. If love can be inspired by anything symbolic, it has to be brought out by poetry-- that is, by words used as music.

Real religion has nothing to do with words. It is a silent, effortless, and fascinated concentration on the basic energy, the fundamental and musical vibration of the world. By such means we experience life as it actually is, as beyond the ways in which it is merely measured and described and calculated in our various systems and symbols. In the end you find out that you yourself are nothing other than that basic and timeless energy.

When you find that out, you don't give a damn about status, fancy possessions, hoards of money, being embalmed and buried in a bronze casket, an living a neatly geometrized life. You don't even quake with anxiety about survival. As the Chinese sages put it, "A man who understands the Tao [the Course of Nature] in the morning may die without regret in the evening". When I explain this to Americans they invariably ask, "But doesn't this imply a merely passive attitude to life?" This is because they have been brought up with such hymns as "Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war".

I simply do not understand the goals and rewards of the Western Way of Life [TM], apart from such side-effects of the project as anesthesia for denistry (which can just as well be effected by hypnosis). What is the point of Progress [TM] if the food is tasteless, the housing absurd, the clothing uncomfortable, the religion just talk, the air poisoned by Cadillacs [or SUVs], the work boring, the sex uptight and mechanical, the earth clobbered with concrete, and the water so chemicalized that even the fish are abandoning existence? Recently, I have been asking questions that really need no answer.

Who wants to serve in a police vice squad, spending hours peeking into men's johns to detect acts of homosexuality? Who wants a job as a debt-collection agent, spending his whole day being nasty to people? What sort of person voluntarily serves as a prison guard or hangman? Also, alas, one might ask what kind of individual would want to spend millions of dollars to become president of the United States, never away from the telephone, guarded around the clock by agents of the Secret Service, reading tomes of amazingly uninteresting documents, and being accompanied day and night by a warrant officer carrying a black bag containing mechanisms to set off the atomic bomb?

We believe that all such occupations, dreary or dangerous as they may be, are exercises of high responsibility and even of glory, despite the maxim that "the paths of glory lead but to the grave". But what is their actual end and purpose? Towards what is Progress [TM]? In fact, what on Earth are we doing? No one has even the ghost of a notion, save perhaps a few simple-minded people who live to smell flowers, to listen to the sea, to watch trees in the wind, to climb mountains, to eat pate de veau en croute, to drink the Malvasia wine from Ruby Hill, and to cuddle up with a lovely woman-- and such pursuits are not really expensive, as compared with the trillions spent on the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory.

For the life-ideal of power-crazy man is (and the word is not insignificant) screwing a plastic woman. She doesn't talk back. She lies perfectly still. She will assume any position you want and be treated in any way. In fact, when it comes down to it, the whole enterprise of technology is to turn all nature into a plastic woman-- a mass of completely obedient and predictable stuff. Why not, instead, lust over the syncopated convulsions of your wife or girlfriend in bed, when you get her into the genuine ecstasy of the witch riding the broom? To me, this is far more manly than smashing and destroying other people and their property, killing wild animals that you neither need nor use for food, or thundering along racetracks in four-wheeled phalluses. Why not go in for something like gliding, sailing, swimming, or even dancing?

Incidentally, I have noticed that these power-men cannot dance, except in the most stilted and formal way, because they will not permit their hips to swing freely-- imagining this to be a strictly feminine gesture. Much of this began because our ancestors had a rigid, antisexual religion, based on an elegantly mistranslated book, The Bible, so that their children fled for relief to the bright lights and distractions of the cities where they could find girls who would play games.

But lack of love for the vegetative, subtle, cthonic, pagan, and sexy aspect of the world means death. The cry, "Back to Nature" used to be derided as unrealistic sentimentality, but I am wondering if it is not becoming an urgent necessity. But mankind is actually feeding on the production of crash and trash-- of superweapons, vast slabs of cement, untold miles of wire, and billions of "objects" to be sold in shops which I haven't the slightest wish to own. Almost everyone who works in a city is producing rubbish and symbols of rubbish.

So WHAT DO WE WANT? I repeat the question again and again wherever I go. We do not know what we want because we are only dimly aware of anything wantable. We have taught ourselves to pursue such abstract and weakly perceived goals as happiness, love, goodness, service to others, fun, fame, fortune, power, peace, or God-- but we have more words than experience for what we mean.

[I propose] that the natural state of man is ecstatic wonder. Ecstasy is the sensation of surrendering to vibrations, and sometimes insights, that take you out of your so-called self. Ecstasy is something higher, or further out, than ordinary pleasure... its achievement requires a particular discipline and skill that is comparable to the art of sailing. Ecstasy is beyond pleasure, it is always a pleasure/pain experience, as when on weeps for joy or as when there is a certain hurt in intense sexual orgasm. Frequent plunges into ecstasy transforms one's normal consciousness. The everyday world becomes luminous and transparent. The chronic neuromuscular tension against the world disappears, and thus one loses the sensation of carrying one's body around like a load. You feel light, almost weightless, realizing you are one with a planet that is just falling at ease through space.

Adventure & Homelessness
by Anna Lore

I did a lot of reading while it rained. One of the books I read was "Foot By Foot" by Francis and Winfrey Line. The book was written quite some years after the adventure which took place in the early 1920's. These two young men after finishing high school decided they would take a year off and travel around the US. They wanted to hit as many states as possible in a years time. Mostly they hitchhiked and walked some 2000 miles. It was a very interesting read. The end result was that Francis Line remained an adventurer, writer and travel film maker. They rose to many challenges earning their living as they went . They sent home over $600 from earnings that year of traveling, so even though they
were totally without funds they managed . Sometimes they were without food for days, slept in mud, were trapped in floods, were thirsty in deserts, and met many interesting people.

After leaving Burro Creek Blm I went to Williams and parked in the National Forest. The next day I went into Flagstaff to visit my favorite book store, Bookmans, a used book store. There I picked up a number of books. The first one I read was "Travels with Lizbeth" by Lars Eighner . This is the story of a man and his dog who were homeless for a number of years. This too was very interesting as well as poignant and tearful reading. Many good ideas in this book for stealth shelters and lifestyles.

What I noticed as the difference between the homeless account and the adventure account was that of attitude. Homelessness is often coupled with depression, a sense of desperation, great loss. The adventurer goes forth with his head high having chosen the course of action and the terms. I couldn't help but think that if more homeless disquised themselves as adventurers, artists, writers, etc. while living a simple life they would not be so subject to
harassment.† People love to have someone of renown in their presence and this homeless man was a published author. He could easily have stated that he was experimenting for a book, which was in fact true.

On Creativity and Art:

Rollo May:

"Nowhere has the meaning of creativity been more disastrously lost than in the idea that it is something you do only on weekends!"

"Forever unsatisfied with the mundane, the apathetic, the conventional, Artists always push on to newer worlds"

"Just as the poet is a menace to conformity, he is also a constant threat to political dictators. The poet is inevitably the adversary of the State."

"Every act of creation is first of all an act of desctruction (Picasso).... The new idea will destroy what alot of people believe is essential to the survival of their intellectual and spiritual world. "

"Artists are the frontier scouts who go out ahead of the rest of us to explore the future."

Joseph Campbell:

"The Artist is the one who communicates myth for today. The function of the Artist is the mythologization of the environment and world. "

"You can't have creativity unless you leave behind the bounded, the fixed, all the rules."

"In thinking, of course, the majority is always wrong."

"Poets are those who have made a profession and a lifestyle of being in touch with their bliss... Follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they'd be. Always go where you want to go-- where your body and soul want to go. When you have the feeling then stay with it, don't let anyone throw you off."

McCulture's Trojan Horse
by Skald

Romantic love is second only to WORK in its capacity to destroy freedom. How many men have sold their dreams for a woman? How many women have degraded their potential for a man? How many have lost their ferocity and self-reliance? How many have been reduced to bufoonery by marriage and children? Is there anything more pathetic than the American family man?--- proudly inept-- hopelessly emasculated?

The family man. The company man. What sad idiots. How painful to see a man stripped of courage, creativity, independence,... vision: Men who should be wolves-- perverted into poodles. Poor saps.... too late they realize this woman is the Trojan Horse of society-- the infective agent of conformity. Through her he learns to crave a house in the burbs, a corporate job, a clean bathroom, housekeeping, kids, tidiness, propriety, safety, security. Romantic love is insidious. Two desperate people, bound to each other, sinking into the stagnant abyss.

Children accelerate the process... through them the man regresses. "Families, how I hate them... the misers of love!" Indeed.

Behold the family-- celebrating every one of Junior's shits, farts, pukes, or burps. Behold the family-- terrified of TV news phantoms: violent "darkies", wetback gangsters, teenage psychoes, muslim terrorists, potheads, rapists, serial killers, drug dealers, beggars, drunks. Behold the family- barricaded within SUVs, obscene McMansions, gated communities, country clubs, suburbs, corporate campuses. Behold the family- drowning Junior in gadgets to prove their love. Behold the family-- injecting Junior with fear and nueroses... coddling Junior... spoiling Junior... beating Junior.... resenting Junior.... suffocating Junior... manipulating Junior.

Watch the desperation get passed from generation to generation. Witness Junior's impossible position. Watch as Junior sells out his dream - never attempts to reach it. Observe as Junior learns to be "realistic"... returns to the burbs, the mall, the cul-de-sac... a job in insurance... a wife.... a mortgage.. a car payment.

The cycle returns full circle as Junior fathers his own child. Works. Breeds. Consumes. Dies.

No satoris. No glimpse of mystery or awe. No creative visions. No ecstacy. No magic. No freedom.

An empty husk- Junior goes trembling to the grave.


"A kind of second childhood falls on so many men. They trade their violence for the promise of a small increase in life span. In effect, the head of the house becomes the youngest child...." -- John Steinbeck

We Are Not Normal
by Skald

"The usual person is more than content, he is even proud, to remain within the indicated bounds of society, and popular belief gives him every reason to fear so much as the first step into the unexplored"
-- Joseph Campbell

We are mutants. Timothy Leary called us "novelty seekers". Tom Peters -"rapid mutators". Kerouac called us the "dharma bums". What is clear is that we aren't normal. We are not content to remain within the strict bounds of society. We are not content to be wage-slaves or land serfs. We are not content to work, consume, and die. We are not content to be passive drones, TV addicts, emotional retards. We are not content to obey and conform. We are not content to live the same day, every day, for another 30,40,50,60,70 years.

We're a motley bunch: travelers, writers, shamans, artists, healers, Gypsies, slackers, hoboes, visionaries, poets, heroes, outlaws, pilgrims, blasphemers, psychonauts, explorers. What we share is a thirst for freedom and ecstasy-- and a refusal to live anyone's life but our own.

We roam the wilds and backroads... follow the highway routes...

We search for baraka... for satori moments...

We gather in secret.... we migrate alone and together...

To the Far East pilgrim paths.... to hidden sanctuaries... moving and living between the fissures of the suburban edifice: invisible and free...

Walkers of the spirit realms

"It is not society that is to save the creative hero, but precisely the reverse." -- Joseph Campbell

Hakim Bey re: Safety

If there's one thing I hate, it's the word "safety". We live in a civilization of safety, in which we are eventually cocooned from all danger, that is to say, from all experience. What we are left with is a vegetable plugged into a computer, who never leaves the room, like a hideous vision of a William Gibson novel. We would be well advised to rediscover risk.

Voluntary Simplicity
by Richard Gregg (1936)

Voluntary Simplicity of living has been advocated and practised by the founders of most of the great religions -- Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tse, Moses and Mohammed -- also by many saints and wise men such as St. Francis, John Woolman, the Hindu rishis, the Hebrew prophets, the Moslem sufis; by many artists and scientists; and by such great modern leaders as Lenin and Gandhi. It has been followed also by members of military armies and monastic orders -- organizations which have had great and prolonged influence on the world.


To those who say that machinery and the apparatus of living are merely instruments and devices which are without moral nature in themselves, but which can be used for either good or evil, I would point out that we are all influenced by the tools and means which we use. Again and again in the lives of individuals and of nations we see that when certain means are used vigorously, thoroughly and for a long time, those means assume the character and influence of an end in themselves. We become obsessed by our tools. "The strong quantitative elements in science, machinery and money, and in their products, tend to make the thinking and life of those who use them mechanistic and divided." The relationships which science, machinery and money create give us more energy outwardly but they live upon and take away from us our inner energy.

We think that our machinery and technology will save us time and give us more leisure, but really they make life more crowded and hurried. When I install in my house a telephone, I think it will save me all the time and energy of going to market every day, and much going about for making petty inquiries and minor errands to those with whom I have dealings. True, I do use it for those purposes but I also immediately expand the circle of my frequent contacts, and that anticipated leisure time rapidly is filled by telephone calls to me or with engagements I make by the use of it. "The motor car has the same effect upon our domestic life. We are all covering much bigger territory than formerly, but the expected access of leisure is conspicuous by its absence." Indeed, where the motor cars are very numerous, you can now, at many times during the day, walk faster than you can go in a taxi or bus.

"The mechanized countries are not the countries noted for their leisure." Any traveller to the Orient can testify that the tempo of life there is far more leisurely than it is in the industrialized West. To a lesser degree, the place to find relative leisure in the United States is not in the highly mechanized cities, but in the country...

Those who think that complexities of transportation, communication and finance have relieved the world from underfeeding and famine are mistaken. Probably their error comes from the fact that they belong to the comfortable and well-to-do groups among the powerful of the world. They have not understood, if indeed they have read, the statistics and reports of social and relief workers in regard to the extent of undernourishment in their own populations and in the rest of the world...

No -- the way to master the increasing complexity of life is not through more complexity. The way is to turn inward to that which unifies all -- not the intellect but the spirit, and then to devise and put into operation new forms and modes of economic and social life that will truly and vigorously express that spirit. As an aid to that and as a corrective to our feverish over-mechanization, simplicity is not outmoded but greatly needed.

If I have much real and personal property and am interested in it, my time is very largely occupied in looking after it. I will not have much time for simple neighbourliness. A selfish and aggressive neighbour may infringe on my boundaries so as to use some of my land next to his own. He would not have been so likely to do that if I had previously been truly friendly with him, had shared some of my garden produce with him and his family, and had been kind to his children. So my failure to do the things which would have created good feeling and a sense of human unity in him has resulted in trouble between us. The lack of simplicity in my own life has engrossed too much of my time and energy and has been an effective cause in creating disunity. Moreover, if, as some people believe, we are at the beginning of a period of economic decline, it may well be that great simplicity of living is the main condition upon which the learned professions which require leisure will be permitted to exist. If so, the previous voluntary adoption of greater simplicity by the learned professions would count for their security and make the transition easier for them. Something of that is recognized in the age-old Hindu society in which the Brahmans -- the teachers, physicians, priests and other learned professions -- are morally bound to and predominantly actually do maintain lives of extreme simplicity as an essential element in their professional code, to which great respect is accorded.

For those who believe in non-violence, simplicity is essential. Many possessions involve violence in the form of police protection and law suits. The concentration of much property in one person's possessions creates resentment and envy or a sense of inferiority among others who do not have it. Such feelings, after they have accumulated long enough, become the motives which some day find release in acts of mob violence. Hence, the possession of much property becomes inconsistent with principles of non-violence. Simplicity helps to prevent violence. Again, the non-violent person may some day become a conscientious objector and subject to punishment by governments - possibly jail sentence. If he has habitually practised simplicity he will not have so much to lose that it would weaken his stand nor will he be too fearful of jail life. Also, unless he has habitually practised simple living there will be in the minds of others a slight doubt as to the completeness of his sincerity and unselfishness. That doubt will hamper the persuasiveness of his gentle resistance and voluntary suffering when the time comes for non-violent resistance.

The greatest gulf in society is between the rich and the poor. The practice of simplicity by the well-to-do helps to bridge this gulf and may be therefore an expression of love. The rich young man was advised by Jesus to sell all his goods and give to the poor and thus simplify his life, in order to perfect his religious life. No doubt such an act would have resulted in more than simplification of the young man's life, but that would have been one of the results.

Hinduism and Buddhism have also emphasized the value of simplicity. The anonymous author of The Practice of Christianity believes that tenderheartedness -- gentle kindness -- is the supreme virtue and the essence of Jesus' teachings. Tenderheartedness, together with great intelligence and strength of character, has in the cases of such leaders as Buddha, Jesus, St. Francis, George Fox, John Woolman and Gandhi, resulted in simplicity. Tender-heartedness seems to have been one of the elements which compelled those men to recognize human unity and to live in accordance with it and to share their property and lives with those who had need. Thus simplicity is perhaps a part of utter gentleness, and may be essential to those who would really practice religion.

The greatest characters, those who have influenced the largest numbers of people for the longest time have been people with extremely few possessions. The reason for this is something that we usually fail to realize, namely that the essence of personality does not lie in its isolated individuality, its separateness from other people, its uniqueness, but in its basis of relationships with other personalities. It is a capacity for friendship, for fellowship, for intercourse, for entering imaginatively into the lives of others. At its height it is a capacity for and exercise of love. Friendship and love do not require ownership of property for either their ordinary or their finest expression. Creativeness does not depend on possession. Intangible relationships are more important to the individual and to society than property is. It is true that a certain kind of pleasure and satisfaction come for acquiring mastery over material things, but that sort of power and that sort of satisfaction are not so secure, so permanent, so deep, so characteristic of mental and moral maturity as are some others. The most permanent, most secure and most satisfying sort of possession of things other than the materials needed for bodily life, lies not in physical control and power of exclusion but in intellectual, emotional and spiritual understanding and appreciation. This is especially clear in regard to beauty...

If a person lives among great possessions, they constitute an environment which influences him. His sensitiveness to certain important human relations is apt to become clogged and dulled, his imagination in regard to the subtle but important elements of personal relationship or in regard to lives in circumstances less fortunate than his own is apt to become less active and less keen. This is not always the result, but the exception is rare. When enlarged to inter-group relationships this tends to create social misunderstandings and friction.

The most beautiful and restful room I ever entered was in a Japanese country inn, without any furniture or pictures or applied ornaments. Its beauty lay in its wonderful proportions and the soft colours of unpainted wood beams,paper walls and straw matting. There can be beauty in complexity but complexity is not the essence of beauty. Harmony of line, proportion and colour are much more important. In a sense, simplicity is an important element in all great art, for it means the removal of all details that are irrelevant to a given purpose. It is one of the arts within the great art of life. And perhaps the mind can be guided best if its activities are always kept organically related to the most important purposes in life.

"If simplicity of living is a valid principle there is one important precaution and condition of its application." I can explain it best by something which Mahatma Gandhi said to me. We were talking about simple living and I said that it was easy for me to give up most things but that I had a greedy mind and wanted to keep my many books. He said, "Then don't give them up. As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, you should keep it. If you were to give it up in a mood of self-sacrifice or out of a stern sense of duty, you would continue to want it back, and that unsatisfied want would make trouble for you. Only give up a thing when you want some other condition so much that the thing no longer has any attraction for you, or when it seems to interfere with that which is more greatly desired." It is interesting to note that this advice agrees with modern Western psychology of wishes and suppressed desires. This also substantiates what we said near the beginning of our discussion, ... the application of the principle of simplicity is for each person or each family to work out sincerely for themselves."...

Old Men
by Skald

Old men next to me, stinking of old money... bitching about weeds and the sun.... obsessed with stocks and dividends.

Pathetic creatures sucking on cigars. 60+ years old but no wisdom- no compassion -no enthusiasm for life.

Used up husks... all trace of authenticity squashed. These are my anti-heroes, what I never want to become: the walking dead.

-------

Then there's Rambling Ron. Here's how he describes himself: "I am a vigorous retiree, and have been touring around the world since I retired twelve years ago. I am well past my "Best By" date but I enjoy excellent health, have never been seriously ill in my life and stay fit and active by keeping continuously "on the go" to see new places and experience new pleasures."

What a wonderful contrast to the old men I observed in Gainesville. Ron is a true hobopoet. Here's how he describes his lifestyle: "The best plan is to have no plan at all....then I am never behind schedule. I live on my US and Canadian social security pensions, plus some modest savings- but I am able to travel world-wide by spending much of my time in low-cost places such as India, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. When I am in places where hotels are more expensive, I travel and live in an RV (North America, Australia and N.Z.) or on a canal boat."

Looking at Ron's picture you can sense his enthusiasm for life.

Ron, and folks such as Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Picasso, Timothy Leary, Anais Nin, Paul Bragg,etc. prove that we can grow wiser, freer, more creative, more radical, more adventurous, and more compassionate as we age.

We can reject the American model of growing old-- of spiritual death. We do not have to become fearful, bitter, petty fools.

We can age as hobopoets.

Overnight Parking While Car/Van Living (Re-posted from 5/03)
by Skald

A stealth car and a good parking space are the essential ingredients to pleasant car living.

So where should you park at night? My first instinct was that a remote and/or concealed area would be best. During the Nissan Sentra experiment, I started by parking in an abandoned lot- concealed by trees. This worked for a few days and then the police found me. The Athens police have always been quite nice.... it was very obvious that I was living in my car (this was in my "pre-stealth" days) but they didnt hassle me. They did tell me that I couldnt park on the lot. I was brash and asked where I could park without them bothering me. They suggested any public parking space in the downtown area... especially if it didnt have a meter. I thanked them and found just such an area-- only 100 feet from the lot I had been in.

The best parking spaces are, in fact, in populated areas... where your car will be one of many. Ideally, this should be in a multi-use area... a place with several different types of establishments. For example, my favorite area (where I have NEVER been bothered) is near a nightclub, an apartment building, a convention center, and office buildings. As a result, cars come and go at all hours. I could conceivably be at any one of these places, so no one pays attention.

Other multi-use areas might include: a 24 hour grocery, apartments, a 24-hour gym, a motel, a late night restaurant, a bar, etc...
But these aren't always easy to find,... especially in the suburbs.

In the burbs, I usually park in large apartment complexes. I choose a spot that is caddy-corner to busy entrances or balconies. I arrive and leave at off-peak times. Also, I rotate between 5-6 complexes... going to a different one each night. I did this for the last year in Georgia and have never been discovered. Busy motels, truck stops, state parks, campgrounds, and the like are decent for one-night, occaisonal stops... but not great for extended periods of time.

Of course, the ideal place is the driveway of a sympathetic friend. I had this option last summer and it was perfect.

A note about very bad places to park (other than empty lots): 1. Never park near a police station, as they are very observant of their immediate surroundings. 2. Never park in housing developments or upscale apartment buildings... again, these people tend to be paranoid and hyper-vigilant. 3. Never park where there are alot of children (in a school zone or daycare area, for example), as you may be mistaken for a stalker. 4. Don't park near banks or other high security areas, as again, these people are hyper-paranoid. 5. In general, don't tell friends or others about the locations you park in.

The Importance of Stealth When Car Living:

Average suburbanites (and the police who serve them) are a pretty nervous and fearful bunch. They are easily scared by anything which is strange or different. Car/Van living certainly falls into this category-- be it voluntary or involuntary. Therefore, it is very important to create a "stealth" vehicle for car living.

The first step in this process is to choose a model that does not stand out. I love VW vans as much as anyone... but to a cop they scream "hippy" (and therefore, harassment). I chose a Toyota Van for my most recent hobovehicle (dubbed "The Mystery Machine"), but even it is a little too uncommon. I recommend a "soccer-Mom" mini-van, a plain work van, or any run of the mill sedan or compact. You should remove all bumper stickers and other distinguishing marks. You want it to be as non-descript as possible.

Once you have a vehicle, pull out all rear seats.... this will create your living space. You can modify, insulate, and decorate this area as you wish. Some folks create elaborate and luxurious spaces, filled with: bunk beds, stoves, tables, appliances, lamps, coolers, cabinets, shelves, tapestries, and other decorations. Other folks are minimalists, content with a cot and a few plastic storage containers. I do highly suggest an elevated bed at the very least... as the floor of a car is quite hot in summer and quite cold in winter. A cot, or custom made bed, will do the trick and will make your nights MUCH more comfortable. Otherwise, do as you like, as this area will be completely hidden from view. [One important note- be sure to store illegal or suspicious items in opaque containers... in case the police take a peek inside. This includes drugs, drug paraphenalia, "subversive" books, weapons, etc...].

The next step is to block out all rear windows with dark black tinting (or use black spraypaint on the insides of the windows). You can seal some insulation board to the windows after tinting them... to block out all remaining light and to prevent drafts and heat transfer. If you choose to tint the front windows as well, be sure to investigate the laws in your state. Several states have strict regulations about the degree of tinting that can be used on front driver & front passenger side windows. Remember, the idea is to avoid attention... not draw police to you.

The last stealth step is to create a partition to hide the rear area from the driving area. I use a shower curtain rod that runs just behind the front seats. I hang a dark blue sheet from it (doubled) and can slide it open or closed quite easily. At night when I sleep, I slide the curtain closed. From outside, especially when its dark, you can't tell there's a curtain... it just looks like the rear area is in shadow.

In summer, I'll usually put a sunshade on the front windshield, to provide an extra bit of concealment.

With these modifications, I can park in populated areas and no one suspects that I'm living in the van. In this sense, the suburban lack of imagination works to your advantage. It would never occur to most people that someone would choose to live in their car,.. therefore, with a bit of modification, its quite easy to blend in....( even with a quasi-hippy van like mine).

East Meets West
by Skald

Bangkok is home to a trashy and chaotic "backpackers ghetto"... a place where on-the-cheap Westerners mix with tourist-trade Thais. Many people denigrate this area--- they say it's not the "real" Thailand.

But it's as real as any other place... certainly as real as "Buford Highway" in nearby Atlanta.... or "Little Mexico" here in hicksville. These inter-culture zones are dynamic places.... places where strict rules break down-- where newcomers leave behind the expectations of home..... where locals abandon local expectations. In the backpackers ghetto, Thais wear blue jeans and Americans wear local peasant clothes. Thai cuisine is served with french fries.

Its crass and gaudy, but there's no denying the energy of this place.... a place that's not quite Thailand... not quite America. There are negative effects to be sure: the sex trade and hordes of obnoxious drunks. But there is also an explosion of creativity, a breakdown of conditioning, an expansion of identity, a renaissance of self-experimentation,... and a dramatic cross-fertilization of cultures. Bangkok is squalid, breeding, sweating, grotesque, and beautiful. So is life. So too Buford Highway.... which is a hodge-podge collection of Asian supermarkets, Korean restaurants, Mexican grocers, flea markets, and Vietnamese take-out: messy, gaudy, chaotic, organic, dynamic, alive. The world village in a microcosm.

Some bemoan these places. Purist tourists bitch about the loss of "unspoiled" places. True-blue Americans rail against the immigrant invasion. I walk these places and dance with glee.

They give me hope.... that the world village isn't the bland corporate gruel served up by McUSA. Nor is it a series of rigid customs that enslave or confine. Rather, it can be a wonderful masala-- a spicy mix of identities and languages-- a "congress of weird religions"-- a clash of styles-- a dance of opposites.

Give me spice. Give me dirt. Give me chaos, movement, sweat and heat..... give me organic life. Fuck the suburbs. Give me Bangkok.

Hobopoets Migrate East
by Skald

In September, three hobopoets (Todd, Kristin, and I) will migrate to SE Asia.... to join Matt Salleh. We'll have the beginnings of a new tribe: Hobopoets East!

SE Asia is an ideal location for Hobopoet living. It's extremely cheap to live there. The climate is tropical.... chock full of gorgeous beaches, beautiful islands, and lush rain forests. Its home to a thriving Buddhist tradition. Living in Bangkok is far cheaper than living in the USA. And frankly, its alot more interesting.

Making a living is easy too. There is a high demand for native English speakers. Most schools want teachers to have a Bachelors degree... but its possible to get by without one. Plus, fake degrees can be bought on and around Khao San Road. From what I've read... these will work just fine for securing a job in many schools.

Hobopoets East will be following in the footsteps of many revered ancestors. Eastward migration is a noble tradition of Western pilgrims, dharma bums, and writers: Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Joseph Conrad, Somerset Maughm, William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain, John Lennon, Timothy Leary, etc.....

If you get the urge for spice and adventure, come join us! We'll always have a space for a fellow Hobopoet!