I Don't Live Near A Starbucks-I Live In One!

Greetings from Caffeine Central, Bean and Nothingness: the 800 lb gorilla- Starbucks.

I don't live near one, I live in one; a mad, mad, Starbucks world. It's tomorrow,and tomorrow is my permanent address!

Just like Seinfeld is a show about nothing---Starbucks has nothing to do with coffee. Starbucks is just like Seinfeld Every year I find myself watching a little more of it.

SBUX---America's favorite drug dealer is serving up, what Europeans call "Dirty Water"They have persuaded tens of millions of people to spend $4 for what had been a $1 product." That's an amazing-getting less for more value proposition. Drinking OK coffee and standing in line to buy it. The cult of the amateur, the army of one, patronizing the YOUniverse. Now that's EGOomics.

Thank you Kid Starbucks--open-minded, we-centric, candid, devoted to progress, personally accountable, curious, and confident ---Kid Starbucks, Thank you for taking some of the quo out of the status, and the way things were before. The Model T way -" you could have it in any color, as long as it's black".

The CNN Effect hit me hard--- the constant 24/7 news cycle. I stopped watching push TV. I pull my media from the web. The medium is the message means ou have to look beyond the obvious---Starbucks is so obvious-It's the coffee -NOT

I am waking up and smelling --- The Starbucks Effect--Everwhere and Forever has its gravitational pull on me---exerting almost cosmic influence on my life!

First and foremost, it is the Wi-Fi hot spot, the air-conditioning of the Internet age; in the spirit of the 20th century movie theatre-- where cold “advertising air” was deliberately blasted out the open doors to help sell tickets, knowing on every corner there is a SBUX and a WI-Fi connection is one step closer to being "always on".

Next, comes the numbers of possible choices available to the customer at the average Starbucks--it is amazing. The most referenced number is around 21,000, made based upon popular choices! But I'm fighting back---I am one of those drip customers!

Finally, The Sex of Starbucks is pleasure- I like going there, and I don't buy their coffee. I drink it. I love sitting in one of their epiphany chairs to self-reflect, write Hotel @nyware , or give in to a mood swing here or there. Do I even know what "venti" is? Oh yea, It's 20 in Italian!

From Starbucks To More Bucks

My Drug Dealer Starbucks is now pushing movies and music. Over the next 30 days, SBX is offering a free download from iTunes every day. Free iTunes Songs!

The Mug Life...Hanging Out And Starbucking is like love: it's s a verb not a noun. You Do it. It's a grammer of scorn and wonder... because there is no way of telling apart the espresso-sipping artist and the cappuccino-gulping banker and that means the democratization of providing anybody with an opportunity to create their identity by providing practically unlimited choice.

Location Saturation: I'm Getting Wet!

There is a Starbucks across the street from a Starbucks! It's a convenience experience. The AMEX card- Don't leave home without it, but when there's a Starbucks everywhere---Don't leave home--because there's a "Home Sweet Starbucks" just around the corner.

This ain't no third place. This is my first place. I live at Starbucks. I'm a free agent and this is my hub. Culture is not always popular, but Starbucks is.

Could I please have a cup of SHUT THE F*&$ UP!

I've been to three today. I didn't have three cups of coffee. I went to three different ones; and on the island of Oahu, that's not like NYC. Even here in "paradise"..Pearl Harbor, Ala Moana, Waikiki.

Make Coffee Not War

I can see it now. We consume about as much coffee as oil. It's creative destruction. It's global capitalism and yankee doodle dandy imperialism. Shatter!

I am applying for citizenship. I am a patriot, just like those alpha geeks, Steve Jobs and passionate MAC (culture) users are.... I would go to war for Starbucks and Google.

Did you know? In 1511 coffee, AKA The Devil's Cup, was banned in Mecca as being too similar to alcohol. The ban was overturned 14 years later. I couldn't help myself. I saw The Kingdom this weekend.

Caffeine is not (really) a drug, it's a vitamin. The chain is off the chain--- Starbucks has become the new McDonald's (44 million customers a week), and "The Google" has become a 24-hour global exercise in collective intelligence gathering. When I say I live at Starbucks, I mean I live in the environment of it. It the U word-- Ok I'll say it----ubiquitious, like Google.

Yet it's not hard to deal with everywhere all at once.

Too Little Too Latte?


Pimp My Google- It's their world We just live in it and, serve in it.
My drug dealer and my pimp, the one two punch that Makes My Day, the in to my sane. You complete me.

I really enjoy being inside a Starbucks; drinking from that paper coffee cup, sitting it in my car's cup holder to remind me of where I was, that shows "I voted" for Starbucks again. It's not about the coffee; it's about the lifestyle. Yea , I heard 7/11 and (DuDO's) Dunkin Donuts Coffee is cheaper, but it's not about the price---"Why pay less?" is my attitude. I don't buy coffee. I drink it. I love sitting in one of their epiphany chairs to self-reflect, write Hotel @nyware , or give in to a mood swing here or there.

Starbucks is a lot like Google. Starbucks is a network. And networks exist to bring people together... and to sell them stuff. No concept is too big and there can never be too many "hooks" into an (end) users life.

There is zero switiching cost involved in me "using" (Seattle's Best)Yahoo or (Pete's) Vivisimo or (Coffee Bean)MSN, but I don't care.Google has StartingPoint Power.It bestows alpha geek status on me, and, more than that, I believed in google before it believed in me. There was no start page on the internet, and I made Google mine.

Now, it is the industry standard, the default start page for everyone- It turns out that owning the starting point on the Internet is really, really valuable; and starting ones day out at Starbucks is too.

Google is my magnifying glass. Something good on Google looks great to me. Just like Starbucks, it's about the lifestyle , the value is on the search, not the content.

Google is not Starbucks competition, Google is its environment. Starbucks is not competitors with Google, They are partners. Starbucks has an interest in driving Google's success. Heck we all are partners with Google. We all have an interest in Google succeeding.

The Dogs of Kitsch went on a world tour ---to satisfy mass culture, by spinning and packaging the shared hallucination of everlasting uncertainty, fueled by the disease of "more". Hello and Buy Buy to Val(shorthand for Valley Girl) like totally: How do you say---Shop till you drop, in Chinese? (More on that below). In my other writings, The Teaches Of Beaches- I have an edict--ALWAYS MAKE NEW MISTAKES. Chairman Howard stole my playbook--with the Forbidden City foray and their general lack of interest in the beverage, I mean culture-because isn't that what SB was selling? He sinned bravely.

Real China replaces Starbucks

Go East Young Man! It was the mantra of simplicity Zero sum minus some.The further East the Dogs of Kitsch go, the further West they get. People are the only thing that make a difference. It's not about high tech machines or your nice buildings and logos anymore. Apparently, the Chinese got sick of Corporate America's Death By PowerPoint Venture third round funding dog and pony shows---"all we have to do is get 1% of the people in China to buy our product." Dim Sum and Then Sum...

Let's read the tea leaves: You can't teach an old dogma new tricks. Don’t mistake motion for progress.If you feel athletic, do you go to a sports bar? So, if you want to love things that can't love you back, go to a Starbucks It's the “democratisation” of boredom. Get your workout on, on the dehumanizing treadmill of materialism and consumption....

Starbucks is like, so prehistoric, and headed for extinction. Chinese like TEA not COFFEE--- Yet you wouldn't know it. The old wine is in a new bottle. The art of telling stories even when there is no story to tell.

The karaoke bar is singing the praises of Don't Worry Be Happy in Seattle. A cheap imitation of the once glory days of the first SB.

It's closing time for the karaoke crowd ---who actually cares that you can belt out the loudest tune after three martini's --It's still the S.O.S. Same ole ___ bland copies of the original. It just goes to show---The secret of staying young is lying about your age.

technorati tags:Google, Starbucks, Trends2007, EdReif

China Starbucks China
The Sex of Starbucks
Free iTunes Songs At Starbucks iTunesBlogged with Flock

ed reif

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In The Sky-

I'm home from the sea, my soul(sole) melody
I’ve been away roaming far away from here
weathered some storms, my heart unafraid
crossed every ocean in the boat (of love) that you made

Been blowing my horn, scaring the spooks
No crotchets or quavers in my books
Gone sailing all night, straight in the vein
like Perry (a bird) on his own flight in his domain in the sky

Running in on the tide with the first of the stars
the moon on the water and the sound of guitars
Glide into the homing as the night falls
to tie up in the haven by the old harbour wall

And the hard-bitten stranger as deaf as a post
who stands at the fire where a poet’s dreams roast
He can’t know the story, he can’t feel the pain
and all of the glory falls around him like rain in the sky

You’re a light in the dark, a beacon of hope
and strong as a sea boat, strong as a rope
And the vagabond wind, whispers over the bay
and the songs and the laughter, are carried away in the sky...

And Harry doesn't mind if he don't make the scene

Kill to Get Crimson Mark Knopfler In The Sky

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1234-First Love

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There's No Place Like Work When You're Home

Greetings from the user friendly universe of the North Shore ---I got LOST this past week...feeling like an Oceanic Flight 815 crash survivor.

Yes, I have clearly been affected by the lush vegetation and flower essences of the Hawaiian island of Oahu. This plane wreck is the best thing that’s ever happened to me!

Did the zero commute to the set. Got paid for the waiting, the acting was free.

Put "The Strength Of Weak Ties" (Craigs List!) into action and got a SAAB 900! for the same price Mom sold me her Dodge Dart back in the stone ages of 1975, $100 US Dollars!

I am on the divine payroll these days... a cosmic free lunch.

Gringos over the Rainbow in the Aloha State...

There is no there there--it just is
...and it depends on what your definition of is is.
For some it is: How high are you?"; for others, it's "Hi, how are you? and then there's just plain, "Hullo"

Ah Hawaii! in a place where Maryjuana trumps Blackberries for productivity.

Literary Sherpa to the critical mass, I feel like a local who "gets it", without having to resort to THAT altered states. A born mystic, my happily crucified intellect is dying on the cross of Club Amnesia, aka, the gathering place, aka, Oahu. All I can say---I know the lines---the book is better than the movie---Forgive them for they know not what they do...

Hawaii doesn't so much as remove the heavy lifting of real thinking. It just keeps you lean and trim on a low information diet, where the "where" of your happiness takes on new meaning.

If you thought washing your hands 3o times a day was fun, try spending time sitting still, doing nothing. Emptiness in full bloom ...Try it: Procrastinate Now!

Hawaii has a way of creating your NOT To Do List. the on demand vibe is about simplicity, and that's scarce, a To Be list.

It gives a selective ignorance that is bliss, and although, I doubt, most of the folks here have heard of Joseph Campbell, they are certainly following his madate to: "Follow your bliss"

Who's Your City?

The place you choose to live is the most important decision you'll ever make, right? Ten years ago, even five years ago, I would have said yes, but location neutral Hotel @nyware says, it doesn't matter any more... a phone, a fax, e mail, an internet connection, but again, the strength of weak ties cannot come into play when you live on or under a rock....

There is a great creative divide--It used to be bandwidth have's and have not's--now everybody can get broadband. Talent does what it can genius what it must. I have been there done that-- visited every enormous and creative hub on this whole wide world----IQ magnets like New York, London, Paris, and Tokyo. the San Francisco's and Bostons of the world the Taipei's and Singapore's, These are the great organizing units of the world, producing the bulk of its wealth,attracting a large share of its talent and generating the lion's shareof innovation, the talent pools from Amsterdam and Dublin, Toronto and Vancouver.

Bangalore, New Delhi, Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou are on my wish list to visit.

Unique, New York....Biology may be biography but Geography is destiny. I was lucky enough to be born, raised and schooled in money centric New York City, an I Q magnet, where the brains are. I like to call-the United States of Unconsciousness---the suburbs.

If you're not in the Boston-New York-Washington economic power corridor, or the enormous creative hubs of the San Franciscos and LA's., it hard to be a geek of all trades-- Part of the "Creative Class"---entrepreneurs, computer programers, architects,entertainers marketers where knowledge, creativity and innovation are key.

On Mug Life--Caffeine,not just a drug, but a vitamin too...

"I feel like somebody from another tax bracket, part of the vast right wing conspiracy---using a laptop in a Waikiki Starbucks--and NO, I will not fix your computer!" Ed Reif


Craigs List Lost Hawaii
Ed Reif

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Lost And Found

Terry O'Quinn LOST

Spoiler alert: This article contains plot points from recent episodes.

In the two most recent episodes of "Lost," John Locke told a few lies, killed an "Other," blew up a hatch full of communication devices and then set off more explosives in the Others' submarine to prevent anyone from leaving or arriving on the island. It's a far cry from the weeks he spent in a hole in the ground last season, punching computer buttons, only to emerge feeling like he wasted his time.

"Lost" mythology has cast Locke, played by Emmy-nominated Terry O'Quinn, as the show's most enigmatic character. When Locke has his mojo, it seems, so does "Lost." In fact, the arc of Locke, and even O'Quinn's own story, closely parallel the highs and lows of the ABC serialized ensemble drama that changed television three years ago. Now, 80 days into the journey of the plane-crash survivors, what most viewers intuited from the beginning seems to hold true: Locke is one important dude.

But is he the most significant castaway? The creators of "Lost" would never say anything that definitively, but they were willing to offer a glimpse of the way they've embedded some of the series' most telling elements in his story from the beginning. Co-creator Damon Lindelof confirms that in the end, Locke will be among the ones who matter most. Executive producer Carlton Cuse added this, with all the finality he could muster: "The character of John Locke is just the very heart of the show."

When Locke boarded Oceanic Flight 815, he was in a wheelchair. But when the plane crashed, he could mysteriously walk, and that seemed to bond him to the island forever. Wednesday's episode finally revealed to viewers how he became paralyzed: His con artist of a father, who years ago manipulated Locke into giving him a kidney, pushed him out a high-rise window, hoping to kill him. Then it did what "Lost" does. It delivered another whopper: Locke's father is tied up and gagged on "Other" territory.

"That was a big 'What?!' " O'Quinn said, describing how he felt when he read the script. "It leaves you with a big question mark, but there was plenty revealed in this episode, too."

Mysteries, loads of them, are the hallmark of this ABC series, sometimes frustratingly so. Since "Lost" returned in a new time slot in February after a three-month hiatus, it has shed nearly 2 million viewers, although it continues to rank as a top-10 show among the advertiser-coveted 18- to 49-year-olds.

As a fan of his own show, O'Quinn says he understands the audience's frustrations with schedule changes and the questions that outnumber the answers in the series -- brought on mostly by the flashback device that focuses on one character per week and the large number of characters.

"If I take Locke's story individually and just follow it from its beginning point to now, to me it's cohesive and it's understandable and it's interesting," O'Quinn said. "But because there are so many people, it's very patchy. It comes in fits and starts, and that's tough for the fans of the show to have to work to tie everything together."

After the castaways went down the hatch in the second season, Locke was more than happy to save the world by pushing a button every 108 minutes. But when he learned that the hatch is supposedly a psychological experiment, he assumed the task he had been performing was meaningless, and that's when his faith began to unravel. Slowly, Locke regressed into the man he had been before the crash: a depressed office worker with no direction. And O'Quinn's discontent mounted.

"It's interesting because the actor took a parallel journey to the character," Cuse said. "Terry's frustration was really a good thing. And his growing disillusionment with his role was also a really good thing, because that's exactly what we wanted the character to do."

As the creators dreamed up Locke, Lindelof couldn't help but think of the Charles Atlas comic book ads he used to see when he was a child: the scrawny kid on the beach who gets sand kicked in his face by a bully, then starts weightlifting and whacks the bully in the face when he returns.

"I think that's basically who John Locke is," Lindelof said. "We keep showing you stories about him making bad decisions and being abused and conned and suckered, all because he wants to be loved. Now, he's on the island, he's not preoccupied with needing to be loved anymore. He just wants to know his place in the world."

O'Quinn acknowledges that his fans' concerns that Locke was being emasculated troubled him because he felt he had never before had the chance to play a "person of strength and clarity, but with a lot of dimension."

"Maybe that's because I wasn't good enough to do it before," O'Quinn said. "Or maybe nothing suited me quite as well before, but it was a character that evolved, that had a lot of doubt and angles and strength and clarity. I guess what was unique to me was that I was playing a character to whom people responded really strongly and positively."

"Lost's" Locke lived a life marked by pain and disappointment until he regained his ability to walk on the island, which he interprets as a sign that destiny brought him there to give him a second chance. In this way, Cuse said, the character is a springboard to explore the issue of faith versus empiricism.

"The very original idea for Locke was that we needed a character who was going to have some sort of mystical quotient going on with him," Lindelof said. "He was going to be very mysterious and quiet. This plane crash is the best thing that's ever happened to this guy."

Whether Locke holds the key to the deepest mysteries of the island, O'Quinn has no idea.

"I don't know how central he is," he said, "but ... it usually means something when he's around. I think it's because of the deeper quality in him."

O'Quinn, fit the role, Cuse said, because, like Locke, he "marches to the tune of his own drummer." The actor often walks two hours barefoot on the beach from his home on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii, to the set.

"While all of the other actors are gathered on Kailua or Lanikai, the populated side of the island, Terry has set up camp away from civilization," Cuse said. "In many ways, he has the qualities of a kind of powerful and intuitive loner ... in close parallel to Locke as a character."

Although O'Quinn is not fond of the weaker and unstable version of Locke inhabiting the island, he understands the journey the writers have outlined.

"I think what they're suggesting is that Locke hasn't dealt with his past," O'Quinn said. "That maybe it's impossible for the past to be simply wiped away. And maybe that's what they're saying about the island or the people or the story -- that everyone has something to deal with."

Source: Post Star

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Crash Course With The Infinite

I don't see things as they are; I see them as I am.

Right now, I don’t see the waves, I am the waves,

I don’t touch the sandy beach, I am the sandy beach.

I don’t feel the sunshine, I am the sunshine.

To live in this vastness is to bathe in the ocean that mystics call one taste.

These are the good old days--- enduring moments when I say that this is the ever "me".

I can drink the Pacific in a single big gulp, with one single big mind.

I can be happy in the world only because I am free of it. I am not addicted to experiences and memories. I don’t need to gather any more experiences . I go beyond all that.

Life is just as it is. I am as I always was.There was never any journey.
What I was looking for is what was looking---the noticer.

I can have all the love I want in the world for the asking. . Love flows through all that is—so I am that love too.

I have access to love within my self, and it says, “ I myself am beauty. I myself am joy. I myself am happiness.”

Knowing myself as myself is the ultimate intimacy. It is original love.

So what do I need of anything else in the world?

Whenever I look at anything or anyone as separate from me, I am afraid of it. Love is letting go of that fear.

My love refuses to separate, to make distinctions. The nectar of love empowers me with its message that I am, always have been, and always will be, made of love.

When I realize the depth and fullness of my love of myself, I know that every body and everybody and the entire universe are included in my affection. I love naturally and spontaneously.

There is only love, and all I can do is remove the obstacles to the awareness of this love.

I have a power which makes all things love - worthy and lovable.

Love

Hawaii

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Love On $0 Dollars A Day-I'm Going On A Permanent Vacation

I cannot avoid love in everyday life. I can only avoid seeing it. It is simple, free and easily available.

Love lives in the moment. It is HERE and NOW. This is not love at first sight. This is love with insight.

There are not kinds of love. Love is love, but there are degrees of love.

I begin , right where I am. It is nothing short of ordinary. I have only to be willing to show up.

I move to love. I will to love. I love because I must, because I will it.

Love begins with the decision to love; saying yes to love, is saying yes to creating its joy.

I am unique and I want to continually share this. I found a woman who loves me for my differences and not in spite of them. I have found a lover for life.

The easiest thing in the world to be is what I am and what I feel. The hardest thing to be is what other people want me to be.

Real love is dedicated to continual becoming...

Love on $0 Dollars A Day, I can’t afford not to take the love vacation. Whenever I start is the right time, so today is the day, I am going on permanent vacation!

My ultimate destiny is to turn the whole world into a love frequency.

I Love deeply and rise to higher ground. In this sacred space I willingly surrender the person I thought I was, who really never existed, and attain a glimpse of the rapture that always was there. There are no limitations.I do the math: 1 plus 1=equals infinity.

If I risk nothing, do nothing, have nothing, I am nothing, and become nothing. I may avoid suffering and sorrow, but I simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live.

Each way is one of a million ways, but yearning for love is followed by learning about love. It is not situational depending on circumstances. It is a universal way of relating to the rest of the world.

I do it, trust it use it. Love, it's not just for chicks anymore. My love flows like a river, ever changing yet there are no obstacles.

It’s a gift, that’s why they call it” the present” There’s no smaller gift than being wrapped up myself. An I For An I that makes you blind to see more-- I "lose myself," I am "taken out of myself," I have "forgotten myself ." These are the moments in flow.

Eyes wide shut and arms wide open,the joy of being part of the process. the YOUniverse appears fresh. I see it through innocent eyes. It all begins anew.

Eyes wide shut and arms wide open,to see what few have seen, you must go where few have gone. Go within! Or go without; without peace, without tranquility without harmony.

I say “Yes” to the integrity of the YOUniverse, in new beginnings, exciting tomorrows, and knowing that all things are in all things.

Why love this way? To live in the moment. To dwell in the harmony of things. To awaken. Say goodbye to change without progress.

Listening is a kind of acceptance . When I listen there is growth, creating joy, expression and communication, accepting and understanding, empathy, sharing, hope, and humanity.

Intimacy is emotional understanding, to know with the heart rather than the head, empathy. It is honest, spontaneous, an easy sharing of feelings and ideas without fear of being judged. It is a safe place.

What’s the meaning of a love life? Get one.

To love is to risk living fully. I have the capacity to love, but if left undeveloped, you will never gain the ability. A life of love is one of continual growth, where the doors and windows of experience are always open to the wonder and magic that life offers.

There is wise and there is otherwise: Love and Unconditional love. My love has only one condition-- that if ever my love keeps you from you, and me from me, from your growing, and realizing your personal potential, and me mine, then we must step aside.

I don’t have the right to stand in the way of anyone’s joy, growth, or unique spin on things.

I reach out in love and the effect is made - everyone, everything which comes in contact with the person is effected and is better for it.

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Eating Up The Light-- The Sun Also Rises on Mt. Haleakala

Write About Here

Maui--Greetings from the global power spot and vortex of Mt. Haleakala's lava dome, aka,"House of the Sun"; where the first lunar astronuts trained and future space cadets get to blast off into nirvana. This is perhaps the most powerful energy zone on the planet.

I've been repatriated back to the Valley Island; applying for citizenship in the comfort zone and state of mind of Aslowha; taking a few courses for my B.E: a Bachelor's of Enlightenment.

At the summit, I met up with , Paulette, a Euro-Asian- British-Afro-Caribbean beauty.

"Cause Im every woman. Its all in me".

Boy could her looks sing. Everyone else seemed like Karaoke Wahines, copycats.

Faith: Apostle Phil Was Full Of It

After the downhill descent, Paulete showed me around up country Makawao, an "off the grid" community where I participated in her shared halucination of new age Aquarian Moonwind Morningstar Jonathan Livingston Seagull proportions - at Dragon Den's Herb Store.

Paulette introduced me to The Dream Team-- Bipolar Phil,a cross between Taxi's Christopher Lloyd and The Passion Of Christ's Jim Caviezel. I gave it my best shot to pick up the pieces from his mathematical dust, connect the dots, and start from where I was---in Hell! well actually heck---it was all harmless, the diet coke of evil stuff, 1/2 a calorie of it. Not evil enough.

Phil was kind enough to do some David Letterman stupid pet tricks with his imaginary animal companion Nefertiti. He birthed her on a Vision Quest in Hilo, on the big island, during a total eclipse vernal equinox. Now THAT was pure evil!

Grounding things out was his Vanna , Scarlett, a Drops of Jupiter 20 something Vegan who practices Tai Ch'i & drink Chai Tea. Her midwest good looks disalarmed her neo-paganistic pretentions. I didn't need to buy a vowel to solve her puzzled look on her face.

Phil was a tool, but Scarlet was a Sand-wich:When you practice witchcraft in "Life's a beach"Maui, that makes you a few short of a picnic.

Phil , let's just call him Filthy-Mr Rainbow Bodhi-Filthy Phil--- who lives in a tent behind the store, has a little more ying than yang. No running water and such. Phil is a SNAG, a Sensitive New Age Guy.

Filthy did a little pro bono divination- He told me I was from Manhattan and Jewish-He got the NYC part right. That was easy because I never did quite shake the LawnGuyland regional accent, but the Jewish part, that was pure Jihad.

"What's that smell" my nose asked

"It's Cedar-it helps increase your psychic substance, would you like some?" he offered.

Actually, I was talking about that other stench--the one that smelled like industrial- strength-locker room- ass...but I can't always express every thought that comes to mind...

"Sure Phil" I shrugged, "you can never have enough psychic substance Go ahead Feng Shui away."

He took a windex bottle out and started spraying me, chanting some double speak neuro-talk.

He gave the top three ---Buddha , Krishna , and Yahweh, an honorable mention, but Tutankhamen and Henry the Eighth. He lost me.

" No worries", as dudespeakers in the strangerhood town Paia put it.

Although I left with the weird sensation that the local fish-- mahi mahi's, have fasinating personalities. I was entering TV land's Twilight Zone looney wav.

Thinking..."Live well and prosper, and, Beam me up Scotty."

What a trip! After a stop at Down To Earth health food store, we made our way over to Twin Falls, where we drank fresh squeezed cane juice, and had Maui gold pineapple--one of the sweetest I've had in a long time.

Shane, the anti-barrista, complete with Kinko curley red hair , cannabis stained finger tips, and OshKosh overalls, copped to the local "ohana" rate after I asked,

"Are you sure this drink is $10 bucks?

We picked ripe guavas and bananas from the nearby trees. Paulette showed me the photos she took of us, and some from this year abroad when she lived in Venice, Italy

"That looks like Vegas, The Venetian" I meant it!

Enlighten Up Ed!

You know, you can't stop the waves but you can learn how to surf, surfing the waves of enlightened moments.

Guess what? When it comes right down to it, where ever I go there I am. Whatever I wind up doing, I wind up doing. Whatever I'm thinking right now, that's what's on my mind. The important question is, now what?

In a world that is moving too fast, the only way to gain personal power is to learn to slow down. The world we want for ourselves and our children will not emerge from pedal-to the- metal speed but rather from a buddha boy spiritual stillness that takes root in our souls.

And the only way to spread one's influence wide is to learn to go long and deep , where East meets West, in the Not So Far East of Hawaii.

Home is not only where the heart is but also where the computer is--and we write to create a world that reflects the heart instead of shattering it.

A fool and his money are soon parted---the oddysey of an average wayfarer.

In one of those that was zen,this is now moments--- the the fool on the hill persists in his folly and becomes (other)wise.I got soaked in Haleakala's subtle, and absolutely silent grace and satori, a kiss from the divine, something for nothing when I least expected.

It's everything I wanted and nothing I needed; a soaring wide angle feeling of freedom and freevangelical power. It took "Everything you are seeking is already here" from a concept to a statement.

Kiss And Tell

Sometimes doing is the wrong thing. There's no smaller package than being all wrapped up in yourself. Less intentional than attentional, I drop the alpha dogma, leaving no shadow, no trace of myself-- Fugly Madame Pele is the new pretty. I have to laugh at her stand-up cosmology.

The wind whispers in my ear,"You go your way, I'll go Maui". It makes this moment fresh, timeless, freed up, wide open.

In such moments, I transcend who I think I am, and cultivate "the witness". I'm an Urban Monk. You are what you eat. It's all one taste; especially when you are eating up the light.

Note To Self: You can let the same force that makes volcanos soar, stars shine, planets move and trees grow run your life, or you can do it yourself.

Mt. Haleakala Maui Makawao Hawaii Enlightenment

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