Woody and the SOL tour

For anyone who didn't know, actor Woody Harrelson has become an environmental activist and has a really interesting website here:
http://www.voiceyourself.com/

Canadian documentary producer Ron Mann has made two documentaries featuring Woody Harrelson. The first, called Grass, explores issues pertaining to the legalization of marijuana. I haven't seen it, but I've heard good things about it. The other, called Go Further, was screened at the Atlantic Film Festival here in Halifax Friday night, and B and I got a babysitter for Z and went to see it.

The doc follows Woody and his entourage on a 6-week, 1,300-mile bike trip from Seattle to Southern California as they stopped in at various universities to give talks on how to leave a lighter footprint. It's a really excellent film, and if you get a chance to see it, do. He follows a vegan, raw-food diet which sounds pretty austere but which takes full advantage of organically-grown food and doesn't support the commercial agri-business industry and all that jazz. He may also smoke copious amounts of dope in his regular life, but I'm not as sure about that.

While at the film the other night, I sat next to a friendly fat man who had a large order of nachos covered with jalapeno cheese sauce, a large bag of popcorn, and an extra-large pop. He finished everything by the halfway point in the movie, at which time the smell of the nacho cheese eventually dissipated to allow me to smell him. He smelled really nice. Sweet and spicy at the same time. I wanted to ask him what kind of cologne he was wearing, but I didn't.

Yesterday, I dropped off a bunch of empty beer bottles at a recycling depot and the young, black, gold-chained kid that was sorting bottles for customers went on a break just before my turn. He had beautiful clear skin, his hair tied back in a tight bun, and one gold hoop earring in each ear. As he walked past me, I caught his scent, which was identical to the friendly fat nacho man in the theatre from the night before. I made a mental note: was this a new cologne? I wanted to try and find it somewhere.

Later yesterday, I was at the supermarket shopping for replacement razor blades and for fun, I picked up a random bottle of aftershave to smell it. I was delighted to discover that it was the exact same scent as these two guys I'd recently encountered -- by fluke chance, I'd found the smell!

So I splashed a little on myself and bought the bottle along with my razor blades. The only problem is that B thinks it's old-man cologne that makes me smell like her 60-year old next-door neighbour from her childhood.

So now I'm at an impasse. But B's at work all day today so I put some on this morning. I can still smell it, and I think it smells great. Even in tiny doses though, it's possibly too strong to wear in public very often. So it might just become a private thing I wear at home or something.

Jovan, a.k.a. what's your guiltiest after shave pleasure?

rhondak, bless her sweet, sexy heart, has validated the little fetish I'm indulging this weekend with cheap drugstore colognes. It made me wonder what other kind of guilty after shave pleasures my friends out there might have.

The thing is, I can't remember not being enamored with colognes and peoples' scents. When I was young, maybe 10, I remember finding a hoard of unused colognes in my dad's linen closet, which thereafter I would frequently spend a half-hour sniffing and sometimes applying. One of my favourites was English Leather, along with some old 70s hits like Jovan Musk and Old Spice thrown in. My dad was strictly a drugstore cologne shopper; Pierre Cardin was probably the closest he came to a designer scent on board and even that he probably bought at Shoppers Drug Mart. I also remember attaining man-scent nirvana after discovering the scent of regular Gillette Foamy shaving cream in the red can. I've always been a sucker for very traditional, manly scents.

This stuff I found yesterday fits that bill to a T. It's Aqua Velva Musk (I know! Aqua Smellva!), and it's exactly the same colour as Johnny Walker Red Label (not even close to my favourite scotch, but I couldn't help noticing). My experiments with it today have demonstrated that even with a liberal teaspoon-sized application, the scent lasts no longer than 2 hours at the outside. It might last longer if I put more on, but frankly, it's so strong at the outset that the teaspoon I tried earlier today was enough to make me sneeze for ten minutes.

I think reapplication is key, and subtle ones at that so as not to give away to anyone that I'm actually wearing it. I like to rub a few drops on the inside of my forearm and behind my ears; I can subtly smell the stuff behind my ears for at least an hour, and when that has worn off, what's left on my forearm is enough for several faint whiffs for another hour or two.

'Fess up, the rest of ya.

(no subject)

My mom is pissed at Osho. She admits that her hangups about his Rolls-Royces have prevented her from giving his teachings and writings a chance -- even a cursory glance, she won't give him.

That's cool, doesn't matter. But now her teacher is reading the autobiography of Rajneesh and digging it, so she's being subtly forced to have a second look. She told her teacher, "My son likes his teachings too, but Panditji, I think that actions speak louder than words, and I can't respect someone who spends so much money on expensive cars instead of putting it towards something more worthy."

One of her favourite teachers, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, has reportedly admitted to sleeping with several of his younger female students, but that doesn't seem to bother her as much, for some reason. I told her that Rajneesh's Rolls-Royces were all gifts from his students, but that didn't seem to make much of a difference.

His Zen Tarot cards are extremely happening, if anyone's interested.

Hari OM.

Journey to Ixtlan (which, apparently, is a real mountain, too)

Picked up an old yellowed paperback copy of Carlos Castaneda's Journey to Ixtlan a few weeks ago and just started reading it the other day. His official site uses frames and doesn't really support deep linking, but there's quite a bit of material on there for those who are interested. The "Tensegrity" page attempts to strike at the heart of don Juan's knowledge transfer to Castaneda and a select few others.

I picked up the book because I've seen it quoted numerous times in the online nonduality communities and lists. There is a number of books in this series, which began with a kind of botanical/anthropological research project on Castaneda's part for his doctoral work, I think it was, regarding hallucinogenic plants such as peyote and psilocybic mushrooms. So far (and I'm not far into it), Castaneda's guru, a Yaqui (Mexican) Indian shaman named don Juan Matus, has been trying to break apart his ego and sense of self-identification. Castaneda is understandably raging against this affront to what he has always considered integral aspects of his personality (and indeed, his very existence), unwilling to accept what appears to him to be the most frightening way to look at himself possible.

I don't know if I'm being naïve or not, but I don't personally think that I'd find what don Juan has to say all that scary. A few years ago maybe, but I think that the 18-month apprenticeship I undertook with my own guru here at my house while we worked together at a corny gig selling software accomplished similar things in my own spiritual progress and practice. To this day, I still don't have a formal practice other than perhaps not practicing at all, but the time I spent with him opened my eyes more fully than any other teaching or book I encountered before or since, really. And he wasn't even consciously trying to teach me anything at the time, I don't think.

The mark of a true guru, that. Taught me everything I needed to know without either of us knowing it. Heh -- I'm probably not giving him enough credit for knowing what he was imparting to me, actually, but the story is more interesting this way.

By the way, what the hell kind of mood is "quixotic" anyway? I picked it from the list of moods in my Semagic LJ client. And how do you pronounce it? I've never read Don Quixote, although I did see it at Chapters today for $3.99.