091103

 

Clam Beach to Arcata to Eureka, CA

Thursday September 11, 2003

     6:49am  I just woke up on the beach. I just crashed out in the sand. I'm partly wet because of the mist. I'm freezing. Oh man. I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't see anybody who came with me here. Other than that, I'm alright. I think I'm going to go back to sleep.

     7:25am  Man, my feet are freezing. I just woke up. Other people are out and it's light outside. I walked over to, umm I forgot his name. Oh yeah, David and he let me roll a cigarette. I'm freezing, man. Since my boots are dying, my feet are wet. They're all freezing. Man, this cold makes me miss San Antonio so much. Brrrrrr.

     8:18am  Bob just hooked me up with a cigarette. I appreciate it, brother. Bob Denver from McKinleyville.

     8:22am  I'm out here reading the Clam Beach County Park sign. It says, "Camping, for vehicles $8/vehicle, for walk-in/bike-in $3/person per night." Man, they don't have anybody watching this shit. Nobody's paying. That's so dumb.

     10:02am  Sid just gave me three Camel Wides. 

     10:23am  I'm just hanging out at the beach telling people my stories. People are listening to me. The park ranger just got here and she's giving people tickets. Tree, the guy who brought us in the bus yesterday is getting a ticket. That's bullshit, man. They're just trying to make money.

     10:49am  I came out to the water. I'm walking on the beach. Yikes, there's actually people in the water in their swim trunks. It's cold out here.

     11:35am  We were all just standing there with our thumbs out trying to hitch back to Arcata when all of a sudden, there's Tree and he picked us up in the bus! Back to Arcata! We weren't sure what we were going to do. Yeehaw! Thirteen people on the hippie bus.

     11:47am  The bus dropped us off on 5th and E. I'm going to load up my stuff.

     11:51am  Me and Geba are walking to the plaza.

     11:55am  I don't know if I've talked too much about it, but this really, really sucks. My boots are dying. I need to go back to San Antonio. It's my deciding factor. My boots aren't waterproof anymore. I step in water and my foot gets wet. It sucks. I'm on my last pair of clean socks. I need to do laundry.

     1:05pm  Sunflower is hooking me up with a cigarette. I appreciate it, Sunflower.

     2:00pm  I told this guy my story over by the wall we were smoking out at. By The Endeavor. I thought I was going to go to the school and type up my stuff. I changed my mind. Some dude gave me a bus ticket. I'm going to go to Eureka. I'm going to go to the mall and go ask around for El Jefe.

     2:20pm  I just saw this girl who had a shirt that said, "Go read a book," so I'm going to go back to the bus station and read my book while I wait for the bus.

     2:40pm  I'm over at 9th and F by the building by the bus station. I walked up to the plaza and went up to this guy. I didn't do my whole writing-a-book-on-generosity-that-the-whole-world-is-going-to-read bit, because I'm running into people who tell me, "I'm already in your book." So I feel kind of dumb.

     2:49pm  I'm on the bus to Eureka. On my way to save the world. I figure I'll stop at the Raven, do my laundry then I'll walk to Bayshore Mall.

     3:06pm  I'm in Eureka. I just got off the bus. Nobody on the bus knew where The Raven House was. So, I'm hoping I'll recognize it.

     3:08pm  I'm at the Shell gas station. I saw some guy smoking a cigarette and I asked him if he could spare a cigarette. He said no, so I asked him if he knew where The Raven House was. He said he thinks it's that way and he points.

     3:20pm  I'm walking up to The Raven House. I just found it up here.

                   Damnit, they're closed. Thursdays just happen to be the only damn day they're closed. That sucks. Screw it, I'll walk to Bayshore Mall.

     3:45pm  Charles hooked me up with a cigarette. I appreciate it, brother. That's very generous of you.

     3:50pm  I walked into the Denny's and nice Michelle gave me some free water and now I'm going to smoke my free cigarette. Oh hey, they have a bathroom at Denny's. I should take a shit.

     4:10pm  I stopped earlier and changed into my warmer clothes. My army pants and my red thermal. I'm walking down 101. It's about two or three miles to Bayshore Mall. That's where I'm going. I just asked some kids.

     4:12pm  One mile to Bayshore Mall. There's a sign that says Ray's Supermarket 1 mile ahead at Bayshore Mall. That's how far it is.

     4:40pm  I stopped in at William's Bakery. I found me a vanilla pudding Homerun Pie for 25 cents. I only had 19 cents, but Crystal is letting me have it six cents short. Thanks a lot, Crystal.

                   Mmmm, that Homerun Pie is good. It had a whopping 280 calories. Yum yum, this is delicious.

     4:46pm  Turning right on Bayshore Way.

     4:52pm  I'm in the mall. Sears.

     5:25pm  I walked around the mall and got directions to the food court. I went to the bathroom at the food court and took a shit. I changed out of my red shirt. I'm going to go sit down and read my book.

     5:46pm  I saw people I knew! The two Brads showed up. They're on their way to San Francisco. Too bad I can't go. They gave me a little nug of weed.

     6:05pm  I just got this great idea. I'm going to sit out here reading my book until they tell me to leave, sometime after nine. Then, I'm going to walk and find somewhere to crash. Then, tomorrow morning I'm going to go to The Raven House and do my laundry, then come back here and keep reading my book. Also, every time I read a good part of the book I always wish I had a highlighter or something. I just realized that I could just record it. I flipped back to page 68, where I remember reading something good and it said this on the very last paragraph of Chapter 5:

                   "The Third Wave, already beginning to batter at these industrial structures, opens fantastic opportunities for social and political renovation. In the years just ahead startling new institutions will replace our unworkable, oppressive, and obsolete integrational structures.
                   Before we turn to these new possibilities, we need to press our analysis of the dying system. We need to X-ray our obsolete political system to see how it fitted into the frame of Second Wave civilization, how it served the industrial order and its elites. Only then can we understand why it is no longer appropriate or tolerable."

                   And on page 77, here's one:

                   "Representative government - what we have been taught to call democracy - was, in short, an industrial technology for assuring inequality. Representative government was pseduorepresentative."

                   And on the second to last paragraph in Chapter 6, on page 78 it says:

                   "In this system, representative government was the political equivalent of a factory. Indeed, it was a factory for the manufacture of collective integrational decisions. Like most factories, it was managed from above. And like most factories, it is now increasingly obsolete, a victim of the advancing Third Wave."

                   It's obsolete, damnit.

We

need

change.

     6:25pm  Jackie was nice enough to give me a cigarette in front of Bayshore Mall. I appreciate it, Jackie.

     7:02pm  I'm going to go hit em up for a free movie.

     7:03pm  No-go with the free movie. Well shucks.

     7:04pm  Amber was nice enough to give me a cigarette outside Bayshore Mall. I appreciate it, Amber.

     7:08pm  Anna was nice enough to give this crazy guy, Matt a dollar. That's very generous of you, Anna.

     7:21pm  I'm reading my book and on page 97 it says,

                  "The grand design should now be clear. Second Wave civilization cut up and organized the world into discrete nation-states. Needing the resources of the rest of the world, it drew First Wave societies and the remaining primitive peoples of the world into the money system. It created a globally integrated marketplace. But rampant industrialism was more than an economic, political, or social system. It was also a way of life and a way of thinking. It produced a Second Wave mentality.
                  This mentality stands today as a key obstacle to the creation of a workable Third Wave civilization."

     7:50pm  Larry was nice enough to give me a cigarette outside the movie theater. I appreciate it, Larry.

     8:15pm  Towards the end of the chapter, on page 115 it says:

                    "It is that entire civilization taken together, along with its institutions, technologies, and its culture, that is now disintegrating under an avalanche of change as the Third Wave, in its turn, surges across the planet. We live in the final, irretrievable crisis of industrialism. And as the industrial age passes into history, a new age is born."

                    On page 124 it says,

                    "One can persist in viewing each of these various crises as an isolated event. We can ignore the connections between the energy crisis and the personality crisis, between new technologies and new sexual roles, and other such hidden interrelationships. But we do so at our own peril. For what is happening is larger than any of these. Once we think in terms of successive waves of interrelated change, of the collision of these waves, we grasp the essential fact of our generation - that industrialism is dying away - and we can begin searching among signs of change for what is truly new, what is no longer industrial. We can identify the Third Wave."
                    It is this Third Wave of change that will frame the rest of our lives. If we are to smooth the transition between the old dying civilization and the new one that is taking form, if we are to maintain a sense of self and the ability to manage our own lives through the intensifying crises that lie ahead, we must be able to recognize - and create - Third Wave innovations.
                    For if we look closely around us we find, crisscrossing the manifestations of failure and collapse, early signs of growth and new potential.
                    If we listen closely we can hear the Third Wave already thundering on not so distant shores."

                    This book is getting good.

     8:31pm  I'm going to wait until right before nine before I go ask for free food. But I will.

     8:39pm  Carlos is being generous enough to give me some gasoline for my stomach. I appreciate it, brother.

                   Dude, I just scored some food. I was like, "Hmm, which one should I try first?" Then I saw the Mexican restaurant, ahhhh.

     8:41pm  I came over to Sbarros and asked the girl if she could refill my water bottle. Jennifer, the girl working asked me if I like broccoli. She's hooking me up with some pizza. Three big slices. Badass, I didn't even ask.

                   Wow, that guy hooked me up with a fat burrito at Los Gallos Mexican Restaurant. Mmmm, it's all filled with chicken and rice and stuff. Yummy.

                   On page 129 it says:

                   "Faced with such contradictions, how might we see behind the trends and countertrends? No one, alas, has any magic answer to that question. Despite all the computer printouts, cluster diagrams, and mathematical models and matrices that futurist researchers use, our attempts to peer into tomorrow - or even make sense of today - remain, as they must, more an art than a science.
                   Systematic research can teach us much. But in the end we must embrace - not dismiss - paradox and contradiction, hunch, imagination, and daring (though tentative) synthesis.
                   In probing the future in the pages that follow, therefore, we must do more than identify major trends. Difficult as it may be, we must resist the temptation to be seduced by straight lines. Most people - including many futurists - conceive tomorrow as a mere extension of today, forgetting that trends, no matter how seemingly powerful, do not merely continue in a linear fashion. They reach tipping points at which they explode into new phenomena. They reverse direction. They stop and start. Because something is happening now, or has been happening for three hundred years, is no guarantee that it will continue. We shall, in the pages ahead, watch for precisely those contradictions, conflicts, turnabouts, and breakpoints that make the future a continuing surprise.
                   More important, we will search out the hidden connections among events that on the surface seem unrelated. It does little good to forecast the future of semiconductors or energy, or the future of the family (even one's own family), if the forecast springs from the premise that everything else will remain unchanged. For nothing will remain unchanged. The future is fluid, not frozen. It is constructed by our shifting and changing daily decisions, and each event influences all others."

     9:15pm  Andrea, was it? She also goes by Sippi. She let me borrow her cellphone.

     10:01pm  I've just been standing outside the mall reading my book, standing up. I'm going to go find a place to sleep tonight. Close to the mall, so I can come back tomorrow and read my book some more. I also have a lot of other reading material, too. That big folder full of Internews stuff.

     10:17pm  I found a place right behind the mall to crash out. It's behind these bushes back here. I'm just going to put my poncho down and go to sleep. I'll wake up tomorrow. I've got breakfast, I've got a couple slices of pizza. Even though it's yucky broccoli, but it'll be food nonetheless. I won't be hungry and I'll be able to sit around, read and wait for El Jefe.

Next day..