Thursday, December 29, 2011

Chunks of Metal, Scraps of Paper




I just joined the Air France mileage club. I figure if I'm going to spend the majority of my money (or credit really) floating through the skies in a hunk of flying metal, I might as well at least collect miles while I'm at it...and perhaps they'll give me some more miles in exchange for the miles I've already flown and so on and so on...until I don't know which way is space and which way is earth. I think I'm almost there anyway.

I'm thinking about investing in one of those little metal necklaces that apparently keep the bad out and the good in. I'll wear the tiny chunk of metal inside the larger, flying hunk of metal and wish for the best :) I know very little about the small force field necklace...just that they're very expensive, they keep out the bad, and that some US pro swimmer uses one to stay strong and agile like a fish. I tried one out at a potluck in the mountains and was very surprised to find that wearing one helps me stay on my feet when someone attempts to push me over. I think I'll purchase one when I have some money.

It's a pretty strange thing to think that small chunks of metal can keep you strong, large ones can take you around the earth and others are capable of demolishing it...all controlled by little scraps of paper. Money. Paper. Papermoney purchasing meaningless, useful, worthless, essential, needful things, causing men to want, kill, steal, lie and in the end, war with each other over it. Wow, all for chunks of metal and scraps of paper. Who knew we'd give them so much power?

Speaking of power, I just got done working for about a month with Olivier Maltinti, a very creative director/actor in Marseille France, who thinks a lot about this subject. His newest theater production is a psychedelic satire about a man named Jr. who is a very powerful man with plenty of paper and metal to boot (you can read about it here if you're interested: http://www.lamarseillaise.fr/theatre-humour/folk-against-capitalism-25072.html).

Jr. of course is dying like all of us and his biggest dilemma is that he doesn't know what to do with all his money in the end since he has no heir and a multi-billion dollar trust company gained from the spoils of oil.

MacGregor International Trust Co. has many enemies and his evil ex wife of course will get nothing, and so he is tortured day and night, in and out of morphine and nembutal trips with the question of what to do with all his dough.

I won't spoil the end just in case you come see it in the future or if Olivier ever decides to sell the rights to Hollywood...but I think you get the idea. The show is a message about the evils of capitalism and the greedy silliness behind it all. It seems quite appropriate right now in the state that we're all in. And I say all, because we are ALL in this together, there's no escaping the ripple from this splash even on the farthest end of the pond.

I really had no idea I'd be getting political tonight, in fact I was just going to talk a bit about my latest adventures but it seems that bigger things are on my mind these days. It's getting rather late now in the sleepy town of Bedous, France (where I've been attempting to relax before more insanity) and seeing as how I will be in another hunk of metal tomorrow headed to Paris for the New Year and then to Greece (where they're especially haunted by these worries), and then a short tour of the Netherlands, I should get some sleep before the night turns to morning, health turns to a cold, and a scratchy voice leads to less scraps of paper (that keep me floating in chunks of metal) drifting my way.

I hope you all had a magnificent holiday (Christmas, Hanukka, Festivus or any other holiday I may have forgotten to list) full of whatever in the world you could have possibly ever desired and that the New Year brings you even more of just that!