Two days of snowboarding in flagstaff. I am so sore I cannot even lift my arms, and can barely walk, but I had the most fun in the last two days than can ever remember. Listening to music on the way up the mountain—Rufus wainright, strokes, Bessie smith, even the new avril lavigne.  A surreal experience with the magic snow capped mountains and the white blankets covering the terrain everywhere you look. Peaceful and quiet. Easy to be alone with your thoughts and feelings. And Rufus singing so pure and passionately. Put on some Air and some Phoenix and some new David gray. Orange sky, mountains surrounding us, skyscraper Aspens and pines blowing in the wind, chills in my body from the beauty of the experience.  

I wiped out so many times I couldn’t even stand up. I would just lay there in the snow for ten minutes staring up at the sky, in this ecstatic pain, then lift myself up again. So happy to be alive. I haven't checked email or checked voicemail in a week. Just disappeared into things, living in the moment. I love the cold and snow so much I have no idea why I still live in Miami. 

Andy Rooney being interviewed on cnbc saying he doesn’t believe in God or religion, thinks it's ‘an idiocy we don't need, that humanity came up with and still uses to make itself feel better for how confusing and seemingly hard things get sometimes.” [pretty harsh huh?] Said he never had a need for it. imagine someone as famous and beloved as Andy Rooney saying this on national TV. The guy is a fucking anarchist. Raised his kids without it. Tim the interviewer asked him point blank how he was able to teach his kids good values without the notion of God or religion; Andy laughed, thought it was a hilarious question, said they don't necessarily go hand and hand that's for sure. [this is one of those justifying beliefs that people use to help rationalize the belief in something they can’t see—“well how else are we going to have good values if we don't have a God or religion.” Woody Allen talks about it a lot in his early films—--is there such a thing as a moral imperative inherently built into man or is it something we need to sustain a belief in God to obtain? I think that answer is obvious. Reminds me of  Mrs. B, when I was first dating Maddie and her mom found out that I was an agnostic—one of those nineteen year old beret wearing cigarette smoking Camus novel toting existentialist college kids back then. She says to me well you cant date my daughter because you don't believe in God. And I said, well it's not that I don't believe in God exactly, I just want to know that he's there if I'm going to start talking to him you know. And she says “of course there's a God. We have to have God because life is too hard without him.” out of politeness I just nodded and kind of agreed to disagree. But that stayed with me forever. I mean we don't go around pointing at chickens that aren't there because we’re hungry and want some chicken you know. ‘look there's a chicken! Where? Well right there! Somebody fucking grab him. I'm starving!’]

Also read a fascinating story about the current state of man’s creation of God in science and spirit magazine this month by famed positive psycho martin Seligman called “and then man created God.” One of the best overviews of the Basic theological dilemma raised by the God theory I have ever read. Conclusion? The author says he doesn’t believe in a supernatural God but believes that mankind is actually evolving into God right here right now, through our own evolution over thousands of years towards omniscience, omnipotence, righteousness, and slowly evolving into the creator of our own realities—less and less reliance on ‘outside unseen forces’ theories. good stuff. each one of us a cog in the wheel that is giving life to God rather than he/she/it giving life to us. if I had to guess myself I would still bet there is something out there, some force if nothing else, probably not necessarily a thinking force, that is giving life to life so to speak. A source of it all. a God? I don't know what to call it, maybe more of a mass collection of billions of souls who have passed on so many times that they have achieved the state of Godness and now help form part of this collective we down here still call God. And this force is strong enough to give power to the whole universe. 

   

Cover of time magazine this week entitled the ‘whistle blowers’ featuring pictures of three women who let the cat out of the bag on mci/worldcom, the fbi, and enron. I saw the cover and got chills. I told the artisan, when she asked me why I got chills, that “it is happening. Consciousness is shifting now towards the light side.” She says ‘women are shifting the planet to more goodness and more honesty. We don't believe in the old ways of the rugged barbaric white man, where anything goes and people are just supposed to shut up so they can make their money. A lot of money has been built on this old principle, but a lot more pain and suffering has been in the world because of it. Women are showing us now that you can still be happy and honest and not hurt others and not break laws and still make money.” Well, we’ll see. Lets keep bringing the fuckers down. Same kids in high school who were liars dicks and thieves are all grown up and still liars dicks and thieves; only difference is that now they hide behind money because in America as in most parts of the world people equate money with goodness, with values, with morals, with what's right. problem is that most of the time the opposite is true. Not all the time though. Our motto? ‘Lie all ya want mister, as long yer rich, we don't care, hyuck hyuck.’  

‘Can’t ride two horses with one ass.’ That's funny. How long are we going to try to ride two horses with one ass?

I think I broke a rib falling on the slopes. Sitting in the living room listening to a friend talk to my family about me, all of them laughing at my expense, sharing stories and shared opinions and observations about how I stay up all night and sleep away the morning, have a pension for 2 hour baths and own more cosmetics and toiletries than the most fastidious of girls, how I sneak away from the group unsuspectingly every night to ‘smoke and write,’ even in zero degree temperatures. Or my not very average lust for adventure and spontaneity and eccentricity, but it was all in good fun and all so loving. Beav was saying “I am going to hang this quote on my refrigerator and put ‘Fishy’ underneath it: ‘I am just trying to be polite.’ Realized that people really notice and appreciate how you are. It's o.k. to let go and just care for others and be a nice guy. Spent so much of my life trying to be the best person I could be but always worried that if you are too good of a person that people will just fuck you up the ass, but in that moment realized that it is o.k. to really try hard to be a good person, and fuck the norm or the status quo that says that you have to be hard or ruthless or greedy or rude or selfish to be successful. Let go of the guilt for being rich and successful. Accept it. embrace it. rejoice in who you are and cherish yourself for being so good and still being happy and successful. There are always going to be cynical people who will judge you or not trust you if you are too nice of a person or too generous or too caring, but that is their hang up, that's their projection. It's not you. just give them a little smirk if you can catch their eye so they realize that it's cool for them to feel that way and for you to be the way you are. Being happy yourself, being really happy and content and successful is still the best example you can give for others. It gives people hope who are still battling a lot of their own internal demons. Spent the whole first half of my life a good kid trying to be a bad kid cause I thought it was cool. Then I woke up one day and realized I was a bad kid. Then spent the second half of my life trying to atone for my sins and be a good guy again. That is fucking funny. 

Riding the ski lift up the mountain, looking at the beautiful scenery all around me, savoring a nutter-butter, thinking about how far I have come in my life, from such an insane and traumatic childhood and even worse teenage years and the twenties forget about it—they were brutal. Being homeless and worse, just miserably unhappy, and then the slow road to pure bliss and contentment as a man. If I die on my way down this mountain today I will be satisfied. I will rejoice and celebrate this life that I have lived where I have come full circle to this state of appreciation, pride, and happiness as my soul floats off to never never land. I will be happy to have been me.   

Last great movie: pride and prejudice—six hours straight with the artisan. Good times.