Jonah rides again! This time fundraising for a rad environmental organization!

WHAT HAVE I BEEN UP TO AND WHY AM I CYCLING 100 MILES INTO NEW YORK CITY?

Since April I have been living in the beautiful Putnam Valley in New York, working with the Jewish Farm School. I have been serving as Director of the Teen Apprenticeship Program at Eden Village Camp.

At our Council of All Beings

The program combines a rigorous farm and kitchen apprenticeship with wilderness skills and leadership training for high school kids. Backpacking on the Appalachian Trail, building a sweat lodge and creating ceremonial space, harvesting eggplant and making curry for 100 people, learning about wild edibles and medicines, diy plays and improv games, primitive shelter building combined with a solo wilderness night, building herb spirals and snack gardens, learning about the permaculture design process and plant guilds, journaling, mapping, tracking, blobbing, dressing up as animals, seed saving, harvesting, winnowing, threshing wheat, and baking bread, making pesto in a bike powered blender and pita on a earthen oven. It’s been unreal, and the feedback from kids and parents has been wildly positive. This place transforms everyone it touches.

So the organization supporting this work is called Jewish Farm School, which receives major financial support from an organization called Hazon, who happens to be hosting the upcoming and quite literally named New York Environmental Jewish Bike Ride, in which I happen to be participating. That means riding 100 miles into Manhattan with 200 other riders to raise environmental awareness within Jewish communities, to provide financial support for innovative sustainable food projects, and bring more bicycle love to NYC. Hazon is the largest Jewish environmental organization in the country and supports an amazing cross section of projects: they have been partners in starting 40 new CSAs, they host a yearly national food conference in Monterey, they have designed curriculum for food systems education in a Jewish context, they have a green roof and learning garden initiative for synagogues, and they support a number of environmental education projects in Israel, including a program that partners Israeli and Palestinian communities in small scale sustainable development projects.

You can read more about where the money goes, or about the ride in general at hazon.org. Even people in their 20’s can give according to their ability! My goal is a sizable $1200. 100 friends donate $12 bucks. Easy.

Visit my wicked donation page to give online!

P.S. The ride is next week, so get the tzedakah while its hot!
So solid bro!

Actually one of the better and more informed articles about us so far.  Only a few and rather mellow factual errors.  Also, for fun, Natasha made it on an interview on Bad at Sports and the same one on Art Practical.  Good girl Tasha.

A thread has begun and there are 6 of us ‘brainstorming’. The timeline is set for an execution of 2012/13.

My first, and current, focus is to spread the word a bit; probe interest:
‘You’ -the lasercave community- came to my mind first; for obvious reasons.

So, say the word.

GREG

Middle February

116 k day into this jungle city paradise. Forts and palaces to explore, and a river for daily swim.

Shivaratri commence. In lue of “shubaratri” (good night),  Orchha comes alive past 9 to make merry like “there’s no other time”.  No bhang lassi reverie with  my lost travelers in Varanasi- a rained out cycle day spent playing chess. Yesterday we wandered into the square outside of the only religiously relevant building in this city of ruins, which is not an architectural gem. Wedding music blares, Bangara drummers funnel blast beats of energy. I take out my guitar and start to play along, drawing a crowd and locking eyes. Oh, the Saddhu we helped into the nature sanctuary the day before wants us to follow him. He leads us into a circle playing baijan on Sarangis and tiny cymbals. Our guy plays a little hand drum-I take out my guitar and look at him through his thick glasses.  My guitar is magically and randomly open tuned to the same chord of the Sarangis.

Call and response “Sita-Ram”, “Hare Krishna”. I chordify baijan classics, sharing in the exact romaticized way we’ve put our search for on the backburner in exchange for hot showers and lemon tart. My plan to unload my wallet on these holy beggars is foiled only by their incessant asking for money.  Interrupting the music- “Money”-I ignore. “Rupees, Rupees!”. Of course we give. But the harsh reality reigns another day-money is the basis of every friendly exchange here.  India will never give us what we hope for, and tends not to give us what we expect. But as soon as we give in, agree to love or hate it, it smacks us in the face with a stomach flu or sunset river dip.

“ride awaaay”

GWALIOR

End February

Too much “real India”. The city is off the tourist loop, and left us fending for ourselves from the bottom of the food chain in a “law of the jungle” economy with fewer western comforts. Being bullied by greater vehicles amidst insane traffic, being ripped off more, and general heckling left us indulging more intensely in soda, ice cream, and television. We upgraded rooms to view “Street Fighter” in Hindi on our big rest/recovery day.

More of the same, if you can call experiencing extremes “sameness” (Which one can more easily here). Exploring the fort that sits atop the city (turns out architecture is the best thing about India) we were pleased to meet a good hearted, wispy bearded man at the Sikh temple. He gave us food and chai in an enormous dining hall where everyone sits on the ground in lines and cleans their plate. He treated us as pilgrims in the classical sense. He offered us a place to stay around the temple for free. A place where a traveler in a strange land may have some peace and dignity. We left the temple evolved from a cocoon(a) of judgments (unevolved Beedrills) about the nature of the Indian, open hearted and greeting strangers with “Namaskars” to show respect. We smoked a bidi on the fort wall, overlooking the city in smog. We heard yells from above in Indian half-englishy, threats and curses. A group of teenagers were throwing rocks at us from hundreds of feet up. Multiple encounters on the ride home left us cursing the idiocy and ignorance of India’s layfolk.

I am learning the value of “callous” here. Whatever’s I do do is what I do, and there’s some rightness in it. There’s wayyy better places to work on opening the heart than India. Expand in the comforts, attack and defend when in its almost a matter of survival, lest we finally push our luck and in our ultimate plunge into the unknown suffer death, which we can’t better ourselves with.

SHIVPURI

ender February

Such grace led us to the holy mandir (temple), where we deed as Baba’s do for 3 days. It started with a young 17 year old’s prayer to Hanuman that his dream of meeting a westerner may finally be granted, after 2 years of studying English from the songs of Akon.  After an hours conversation, mostly translations of American slang and uncomfortable descriptions of sexual acts, we asked to stay in his home. Too embarrassed to show us wher he lives, he took us to a temple which sat under a spring, and the keeper of this holy place agreed to let us stay.

The babas, whether out of ignorance  or disinterest in value judgments of “good” and “bad” possessed as little ecological consciousness as the rest of India, littering plastic chai cups and washing oily dishes in the source of fresh water for the wildlife of Madhav national park. Sharing their lifestyle for a few days was a gift and required little renunciation, save the headmaster Baba insisting that I use his blanket instead of my sleeping bag, which everyone was equally astonished and disgusted by.  These people know how to live: wake early, bath, meditate, eat delicious, simple food, do Assana, formal prayer and Baijan singing, hitting the chillum violently and drinking chai throughout the day. And all in the name of god.

JAIPUR

Beginning March

” Bundar manu, Holi hai!” That’s what we say to victims of our bicycle, water balloon drivebys on this holiday-Holi. Day…of water and color bombs, dished backhanded to approved victims based on their response to a “Happy Holi” as we approached. If there was no risk of cold blooded, cruel natured revenge, I flung one and rode away with a “scram!”. “Do’t mind, it’s Holi!”, and most didn’t. The foul looks and nastiness that we often receive at the whims of overproudy teenagers and young men as we ride by have, for the time being, transformed to smiles, hugs, and a generous smearing of purple powder dye on our cheeks.

We stayed in a guest house occupied by a cross section of a family with a long lineage of musical mastery.  The current bearer of the flame, 17 year old named Zuber,  is presently a finalist on Indian Idol. His crystal voice could easily come to be recognized through overdriven speakers on street corners across India. Each morning we  practice Qawwli singing. The home cooking is Rajasthan flavored and delicious. Our room has lot of windows and smells like old books. During the day, pigeons fly in and out of the open windows as I play guitar and write poems.

Hardcore roadside calorie clincher

Sikh wedding. Guess I was doin’ “the zombie”

We biked many sun baking, wind whipping, lip parching days through the desert of Rajasthan to get to  Udaipur  , oasis city where the “bicycle adventure” portion of the trip ends and the “traveling with parents” section commences. We meet my dad and grandparents here tomorrow, and do aspire to sneak our filthy selves into the Lake Palace hotel to stay with them, most romantic and luxurious hotel in all of India. I always thought of this section as the icing on the cherry of the cake of this trip, very end, lap of luxury. Weird! Home on April 7th. Thanks for reading my blodglings’zes!

Click here to view the embedded video.

13,000 – Approximate number of people who climb Mt. St. Helens each year

8,365 – feet the crater rim rises above sea level

52 – Age of climber Joseph Bohlig when he died after a cornice gave way during a casual photo at the crater rim

68 – Number of times Bohlig previously summited the mountain

Very experienced guy has terrible luck on the biggest “walk-up” mountain climb around.  So simple but so sad.  What happened?  What happened to him after he fell?  How did he die?

1. Google

2. There is a squirrel in my attic.

Now, there are many and various challenges of living in a hip and thriving city (overpriced coffee beans, stroller dads, white guilt), but I had not previously known about squirrels as a potential obstacle which I would have to overcome in my interesting and emotionally wrought life.

For the last couple of days, my roommates and I have been hearing a weird sound in the walls. Like a scratchy or move-y sound, kind of like a homeless dude was digging through our walls for cans, which we knew was silly because we keep our cans in a cardboard box inside the house, not inside the walls. I was pretty sure that it was a ghost (friendly, obv) or some kind of rat. It turns out that it was a squirrel, and also that squirrels are not “some kind of rat,” but in fact their own unique breed of species. Huh.

So the big question is: What’s up with squirrels? Are they cute? Should we befriend it and bring it little nuts and things? Or are squirrels a menace, to be exterminated?

I did a little google-imaging, and here are my findings about squirrels:

This seems like a pretty cool squirrel, kind of a chiller. If our squirrel is like this, I think it would be nice to have it in the attic, strumming the ukulele or whatever. Maybe this squirrel could even be taught to play other instruments, and could join one of the many bands\experimental projects around town. It would be socially valuable for my roommates and I to be associated with this squirrel.

This squirrel has a boozoka. While I totally support the coming Apocalypse, and movies\graphic novel inspired by this future moment in history, I don’t think it’s appropriate to have guns in the home. I’ve been pretty affected by these public service announcements, so I’m going to have to say that, at least for the moment, that I am not OK with a squirrel like this in our attic.

Wow, squirrels are really sharp dressers. I am learning so many facts about squirrels today. I really, really really hope that our squirrel is wearing a similar outfit to this one. If so, I am definitely pro-squirrel.

I am nervous about sexual harassment at the hands\paws of this squirrel.

OK guys, have you had any experiences with being roommates with squirrels? Was it ever tense when they left little nutshells around?

Please note that this blog has an automatic non-discriminatory sensor in the comments section; please do not write anything inflammatory (i.e. a “flame war”) about squirrels that you do not actually know.

x-posted to Horse Facts.

Cat Band was pretty much the first “cool” music I listened to in highschool. I had an *NSYNC binder and this dude Greg the Anarchist was always scaring me by making Anarchy signs, and I was basically on a one-way ticket to Nerd in a handbasket. Until I heard Cat Band.

Their sound was unconventional yet rhythmic. They were attractive, but they wore sensible shoes. They were Polish, but they were really into confronting everyday realities for youths.

I suggest that everybody check out the docu on them. It has Kim Gordon.

x-posted to Horse Facts