Come On Baby Light My Fire

First of all, starting off the "duh!" news story...Mitt Romney smoked pot. Please, anyone who is over fifty tried pot and so everyone running for president falls into that category. Our current president smoked pot and did coke. Who cares? It's a youthful experiment and that is what youth is all about. I'm hoping that is what being a senior citizen is all about. Senior citizen...What a terrible turn of phrase. Eeeeeooooo. That sounds like a REALLY old person. Like, REAL old. I'd like to be referred to as an advanced hippie. Gettin' high every day. Livin' off the land. Who am I kidding? I can't even grow a tomato. Peace, man. That's one thing I know how to do.

Carpinteria is a great little funny town. Ten minutes south of Santa Barbara and a million miles from Montecito and Oprah and her friends. This weekend was the "world famous" Avocado Festival. I think people as far away as San Diego come to this festival. World's biggest vat of guacamole. Avocado ice cream. Avocados decorated like little people. And alcohol. Personally, I think that's the draw. You can walk around with a Marguerita in your hand and eat yourself into oblivion. A tri-tip sandwich smothered in guacamole. Can you think of anything better?

Well, if you think this is just some rinky dink festival, think again. Playing wild bluesy rock and roll was this little local band and sitting in on drums was John Densmore of The Doors. This guy wrote Light My Fire! This Festival is a big deal! He wrote the number one acid song of the last century and there he is sitting next to an avocado playing his drums. I wanted to tell him that I saw him play at the Whiskey many moons ago. Saw Jim Morrison writhing around on stage while he played. "Try to set the night on fire!..." Saw Jim Morrison in the back row of the theater company I was in a couple of times, watching our show, The James Joyce Memorial Liquid Theater (I kid you not. Remember, it was the sixties...) and he loved it and HE was watching ME! How cool is that? But, of course, I didn't say anything to John Densmore. I just danced and ate corn and once again felt really good that I had grown up in such a "groovy" generation.

Saw Into The Wild. I liked it. Talk about the arrogance of youth. (I related to him not being able to eat at the end. Sometimes I feel just like that.) But I thought about lot of things while I was watching the movie. Thought about the choices people make that sometimes go completely haywire. (Don't you just love that word?) But the thing is, they made a choice. And maybe it was a risky one. But they made it. And then there is fact that some people, I think most people...Don't have a choice. They are born with nothing, they have to work to eat, maybe feed a family, and that's just that. This boy was lucky. He could make his own choice after seeing a certain way of life that he rejected. The life of privilege. Who knows what he thought while he was dying. "Hmmmm, I think I made a bad choice here. Shit. I'm going to die." Had he chosen to be a lawyer, we probably never would have heard of him. So maybe he did make the right choice. Just kind of a bummer for him.

I am sitting here writing while three plumbers are cutting up the ground outside my window. They told me that if they didn't clear out the pipes, my house would blow up. Should I believe them? See, this is just like when they told me I had cancer. Would I have blown up if they hadn't cut me open? Will my house blow up next time I use the toilet? I don't know. My grandparents lived in the same tiny house forever in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania and their house never blew up. And it was also a little grocery store with chicken feathers and beef fat going down the drain. And they're telling me I can't use the toilet?

They're drilling now. My teeth are hurting.

Call me crazy, but I think saw Jim Morrison walking around the Avocado Festival eating a guac and chicken taco. I actually saw about twenty other people who looked like Jim Morrison.

Can you say contact high?.....................................