Landlore: Alternative Travel Lifestyles

Lesson - A Simple Question : When the question found me, my body had already been broken by a sleep-deprived week-long extravaganza of chaos at Burning Man, and with all my filters of perception completely blown. Then there, staring at me out from the photos of one dusty face after another, was a single question: " W hy D o Y ou D o W hat Y ou D o ? " [click images to enlarge] Simple. Powerful. Frakking important! Why had no one asked me this before? Why had I never even heard of the WDYDWYD? project before Burning Man? And the question itself? Oh, yes, I knew my answer... I knew it immediately. I had tried to think of a better answer, but I returned over and over to the very first one that my heart screamed at the moment I heard the question: " Because second chances aren't guaranteed. " Second chances are not guaranteed. Yes, I've been given second chances before--I'm alive because of a second chance--but they're not guaranteed. Ever since...

Hilarious before and after the twist in this little story, and expertly delivered by none other than David DeAngelo himself. Pay attention, however, well... if you're laughing too painfully, play it again, but there is real information here hidden inside the laughter. Enjoy! "American Women in Europy" by David DeAngelo

People still email me about this short story I wrote in 2002: "Homelands". Even in a fantasy setting like this story, where magic and armies dominate the environment, the story's driven completely by the most essential human emotions: confidence, fear, doubts... love. I ended the story with the same words that started the story: "There was a man and a woman in a garden." You could say I'm a bit of a romantic. Ok, more than a bit... I burn and I burn hot and my passions are animal and very thirsty and, yes, at the end of the day it is one woman I desire in my arms. On any given day, I work with some incredibly attractive artists, models, musicians, and side-by-side with some frakking hot creatures who are tribe to me... and no matter how many women, or what the day brings, or how attractive, there is still this romantic idea and desire for a "one". It is worth loving and trusting and burning completely to find that woman... and it is worth dying a...

" Here's what our parents never taught us " by Shinji Moon You will stay up on your rooftop until sunlight peels away the husk of the moon, chainsmoking cigarettes and reading Baudelaire, and you will learn that you only ever want to fall in love with someone who will stay up to watch the sun rise with you. You will fall in love with train rides, and sooner or later you will realize that nowhere seems like home anymore. A woman will kiss you and you’ll think her lips are two petals rubbing against your mouth. You will not tell anyone that you liked it. It’s okay. It is beautiful to love humans in a world where love is a metaphor for lust. You can leave if you want, with only your skin as a carry-on. All you need is a twenty in your pocket and a bus ticket. All you need is someone on the other end of the map, thinking about the supple curves of your body, to guide you to a home that stretches out for miles and miles on end.

There's No Tequila in Andorra : Andorra--the country with the highest life expectancy in the entire world. Before talking about the mountains and the refuges; before talking about the ruins, hidden backroads, and trails; before talking about the insanely cheap duty-free shopping and tax breaks; and even before talking about the almost total absence of crime, laws, and regulation; it's important to talk about something else. I've got a question and a complaint: Where the FRAKK is the tequila?!? It's actually difficult to come up with complaints here in Andorra, and complaining that my woman isn't here with me isn't anything Andorra can fix, so I'm complaining about the dry spell on tequila... because everything else I could write would be lavish and superfluous praise. There's no tequila in Andorra. That's a damned lie... but it ain't far from the truth. My woman, the magical creature that she is, happened to find one hell of an incredible M...

The year comes to an end, and the Day Out of Time is tomorrow on the 21st... and then the Year in a Day the day after, a day that comes only every four years. There is so much that has happened in the past four years I need to reflect on.... and, looking to the future, so many things to work towards in the next four years. I am in the country of Andorra, too far from the woman I love, but fighting for ways for us to be together. I have learned more about the laws of the Schengen Zone in the past month than I think anyone should know. Before, I ignored those laws like many others... but I am no longer alone, and ignoring them could mean being exiled more than 10,000kms from my woman.. and other dangers also. Level of everything-hell-the-frakked-up at well over 1000% and killing me. Tomorrow, on the Day Out of Time, I will walk and climb into the mountains of Andorra and away from the world... returning in a few days. There are many, many mountain refuges here in Andorra. I will be h...

You heard that right: "You can only be married on Saturdays." * Now, this is France I am talking about, and I am going completely on word-of-mouth.... BUT, the word is: you can only be married on a Saturday. Divorced? ANY DAY!!! Ooooh yeaaah! Laugh now, but I think that this could be a very very good idea. Listen! France has 10% (or more) less divorces than America. W00T!!! AND, France also has about 30% less marriages than America. Win again!! Less money going to the government for a legal paper that says "I love you", and less money going to the government for a legal paper that says, "I hate you". Why do we need these government-signed pieces of toilet paper anyway? You see!?? This is all win! I think it is time to experiment with this "only married on Saturday" concept in other parts of the world. Any takers? America, I'm looking at you. But that's not all, I also need to talk about a very special beer, specifically to those poo...

No, the title is not a joke. In fact, it's even worse than the title suggests. My sister Gaea sent me an article that (at one moment) literally dropped my jaw... and I can tell you the moment: when I read that a homeless mother who had tried to get her child education was charged with first degree larceny, and that the woman who tried to help the mother and her child was, herself, evicted for trying to help them. This is not some third world country. This is America... "the land of the free". 10 Unbelievably Sh**ty Things America Does to Homeless People ( AlterNet , April 5, 2012) Here are some summarized snippets from the article (and with one of my own thrown in): It's illegal to feed people It's illegal to go to school It's illegal to walk * It's illegal to sit down It's illegal to sleep It's illegal to clothe people It's illegal to donate money * The article mentions jaywalking, but it does not mention the laws in almost all...

1 week and 1 day, and here I am across the ocean avec the woman I love, and time to take a brief moment to update everyone. Yesterday, my woman took us near the center of Paris and to the Eiffel Tower, including and especially the nearby super-fountain, as well as the parks, the monuments, and the beautiful weather that came to Paris on Saturday. And best of all, passing the day with this incredible beautiful creature in my arms. [ Watch the Video on YouTube ] Note : Daylight Savings time is being fired!! I lost one hour in America before I flew over the ocean. Now, because Europe changes the time later than America, I lost 1 MORE HOUR on this side of the ocean. Can't we stop this Daylight Savings craziness already?? Song of the Day : San Jaya Prime - Watch Me [ Download ]

"The one who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. Those who walk alone are likely to find themselves in places no one has ever been before." ~ Einstein

This Friday, I get on a plane to cross the ocean. Normally when I'm packing, I tell all of you what I'm packing and why I'm packing it. Not this time. This time's different. This time I am not flying to a place, in so much as the place is inconsequential, because this time I am flying to a person. I am flying to the woman I love, and who fucking loves me. I am flying to a woman who also hears the call of the horizon. And this is not a trip or a visit, but something entirely new. Since I won't be covering "the list" this time, let's look back on other lists. The easiest is from my journey into Mexico with my brother Zero in 2004. Other than the clothes I was wearing, this is all that I took with me: Yes, I took juggling balls with me. My passport, a compass, a Swiss Army Knife, a book that I will not name here, and a bag with items that I will not disclose here. We were riding on the winds of fate, and we were well taken care of. Mad love for Mexi...

Not everyone is fortunate enough to make it to Rio for Carnaval. And for those who don't make it, this tilt-shifted video makes for one hell of a runner-up for the experience. Click play. Enjoy! Tilt Shift Video - The City of Samba Carnaval party in Rio de Janeiro - Brazil [/w thanks to Marf for sharing the video in the first place!]

"If you're twenty-two, and physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel -- as far and widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them -- wherever you go." ~ Anthony Bourdain

Paulo Coelho, who wrote "The Alchemist", "The Pilgrimage", "The Valkyries" (and many others), talks about the meaning of life. Normally when any person starts talking about the meaning of life, the speaker does not even realize the subjective nature of the meaning of life. Coelho focuses on the subjective nature of the meaning immediately, then follows with brilliant examples to show how the meaning of life reveals itself to each person. Beautiful!! [ View the original post here on Facebook ]

"Your first time out of the country of your own skin, I didn't bring a map. You always hated that I'd been lucky enough to pick my way through streets I couldn't pronounce to find cathedrals, graveyards. If you were a city, you said, I'd only like to know your suburbs. If you were a city, I said, I'd like to know your poor neighborhoods, your inner parts. Read your graffiti. Drink your tap water. Feel your smog and dirt stick to my sweat. Hear your orchestra of sirens and gunshots. I'd know which of your streets to walk. If you were a city, I'd expect to be robbed." ~ Heather Sommer

Lesson - Archive, Pack, 'n Purge : One o' the most gratifying ways to say goodbye is by making gifts of all the "stuff" you'd otherwise be leaving behind. Instead of paying to store it, you have a gift to give away with each farewell. You don't need those possessions any more... 'n it's exciting to go thru each item and think of who it's perfect for. "Who will enjoy this the most? Who needs this? Who'll get the most use out of this?" You ask yourself these questions, 'n you'll find that you already know the peep an item's meant for. When you give things away to the peeps they're meant for, you'll find that you naturally remember who has what. If you want to re-read a book or re-watch a movie, you know exactly where to find 'em... 'n it gives you another connection to see a friend at the same time. This is the very essence of a gift that keeps on giving. A purge like this is only for the more experience...

" Old Man and The City " by burningmonk (Lukasz Kazimierz) [ CC BY-NC-ND ] A Most Interesting Story from [ Here on Snopes ] A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousand of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule. A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk. A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work. The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him alo...