Me and Bas and the Tortoise riding around sobe on Sunday, top down, hot sun beating down. I'm cranking Beyonce and Jay Z. Bas is hating it. Tortoise is hating it. I'm loving it. “Man those fucking sluts,” Bas mumbles to no one. “who dog?” “those sluts from sex and the city.” “Well dude you know its not real you know. it’s a book. It’s a TV show.” “ I know that. but it doesn’t matter. Its still having an influence. and I don't like it. why do they have to act like that?” “I don't know man. But its gross. I agree with you.” “But it’s a catch 22 though, cause its cool that they're talking about all this stuff because girls should be allowed to talk about sex too. But I'm torn by it. Cause why do they have to be so slutty about it...” “we don't want our girls to be slutty like that. we want them to be princesses.” “Hey man, the good ones still are bro...” “Yea but not if they keep watching all this stuff. These TV shows try to make it cool for chicks to be whores. What kind of a world are we living in?” “Easy for us to say. We’re the biggest sluts there are. like all men.” “Yea but that's just it. We’re men. Its different. Like I said man. I don't like it....” We drove silently down the causeway. I made a mental note to write about our conversation when I got home. And the rest of the way to the beach I thought about what we were saying. Bas is right. God by the time the media and the entertainment world is done with us, are there going to be any decent women left in the world? Any decent people for that matter? Will there be anything remotely moral or ethical or pure or righteous left in us by the time we’re all done selling to each other and exploiting each other and profiting from each other in any way we can regardless of the cost? “We are becoming slaves to the dollar! That's what's fucking happening! And the possibility of celebrity. That's what reality TV is fucking all about man! Selling our souls for anything. For fame or money or anything that even remotely resembles it.” he stared out his own window. He never even turned to face us as he rambled on and on. 

“Hollywood is the new church. That's our religion now. People don't care about their souls anymore. People don't care about God. What they care about is money. and fame. And feeling like somebody. And they don't care what they have to do to even get close to that.” I joined in. “The crass commercialization of all things is making nothing sacred in this world and rendering everything there is fair game to profaning. That's the problem.” “Where the fuck do you guys come up with this stuff?” The Tortoise asked us poking his head up from the back seat. “Would you guys just shut the fuck up?! Sp we can enjoy our Sunday?! And turn up the music.” Bas continued: “Girls wonder why we cycle through them so fast not even giving them a chance. Maybe if we could find one who doesn’t think that its alright to say the word cock in public just because some fucking slut actress does it on TV every week, then maybe they’d get a chance! Where are all the decent girls now in this world?!” “I couldn’t agree with you more. I can’t believe the way girls talk now. Its gross. You don't want to hear some girl using curse words.” “You guys are whacked,” The Tortoise said and leaned back in his seat. “I like it when a girl says cock. You guys sound like old ladies. From another generation. From another world.” Tortoise chimes in. “That's gross. You may like it when some girl your banging says cock in the privacy of your bedroom... or the bathroom stall....” “haha! What's up?” “But that doesn’t mean you want your wife ever saying that word. Or maybe you do, but that's your business. But that's what we’re talking about man. Its different.” “Whatever dog. I don't mind if my wife says cock.” I looked over at Bas in the passenger seat. Maybe it really was just he and I. Just the way we were raised. Are we that old-fashioned? For me, I couldn’t imagine spending any time with a girl who would even think about saying the word. In public or private. Why would she? That's not what we want from our girlfriends or wives. You know there are still some guys who want girls to be girls.  

Current read: Bryson’s dictionary of troublesome words, by Bill Bryson.

And of course still reading PEAK EVOLUTION. Just a few paragraphs a day. savoring it. 

Last screening: Blues by Martin Scorsese. He has made this ten hour documentary by seven different directors chronicling the blues. Featured great scenes with one of my all time musical heroes, Ali farka toure in his hometown of niafunke, Mali in Africa. It was great to see him play and speak like that so casually. Learned a lot about the early blues. 

“When does it stop being about me and turn into literature? Can it hint at it? Does it? Should it?”

“Man when does it stop being literature and show the real you is what is important here. You have to push it beyond just literature. Head into the world of literature, but keep it real man. We get enough literature out there... reality is where its at man...”

“But goddamn man. Its my fucking life.”

“Yea man. And that's what makes it cool. Keep it real bro. Keep it real...”

On the beach right now. Sitting in the sand of the Santa Monica beach watching the sunset. A mountain range to my right. The ocean and setting sun in front of me. Endless beach and more mountains to my left. And palm trees as tall as skyscrapers behind me lining a highway that winds on forever up and down the coast. Don't have sunsets on the east coast. Very cold here. Dry and cold. Somehow it feels different. California is very big. Too expansive for words. Just the sprawling beach, the sand between the pacific coast highway and the ocean is longer than a New York City block. In fact, the average California palm tree is a longer than an average Miami block. Everything is big in California. Driving through Santa Monica, sunset strip, west Hollywood, pacific palisades, Brentwood, Beverly Hills, it feels like any minute some guy in a Baseball cap is going to come out from behind a wooden façade with palm trees painted on it and yell “cut!” everything looks like a movie here. We found out tonight that Larry David lives here in this neighborhood a few houses away, and his show curb your enthusiasm is filmed here in this neighborhood where mike and Beth live. You eat at your local Italian restaurant and two days later you see it on TV. That's California.

Also very beautiful. It offers amazing greenery, great beaches, mountain views all around you. And more than that, the people seem real, more real, sincere. A lot less bullshit than on the east coast, which is funny, because everyone I have spoken to here says that you have to watch out for the bullshit or the fake and phony people. Maybe they have just not ever been to Miami or fort Lauderhell. The problem is that there really isn't a city here. there is just little cities all over the place nestled amongst sprawling neighborhoods. Neighborhoods and more neighborhoods that go on forever. But no city really. That is California.

Rich Man / Poor Man

Just read that the average Hollywood movie costs approximately 75 million dollars to make. Some like Titanic have made as much as 1.3 billion dollars or the Star Wars Phantom Menace film that grossed 930 million. It occurred to me how much that money could help our species in other ways besides just sitting in the banks of super rich movie studios of Hollywood. Even if they gave say a third of the money away that they made, say three hundred million, it could take a huge chunk out of the homeless situation here in the States or really help with the AIDS crisis in Africa or so many other dire needs we have as a people.

I spent most of the day thinking about this, really moved at the thought of shifting us in the direction of helping humanity get to a new level of civilization. It is always beyond me when I encounter individuals who make ungodly amounts of money and who don’t give a large portion of it away to causes that will help the greater good of humanity. I am certainly not a socialist and would never propose that anything like this should be government mandated. And I’m the last person who would sacrifice my own personal comfort and the luxuries of life for anything; regrettably but still resolutely this is just the way I am, but I do believe that once we get to a certain level, say where many film stars and sports figures are, where you’re making twenty million a film or ten million a year, then yea, we should really start giving in a big way, say you get to the point where you’ve got ten to twenty million in the bank, start giving away a few million.