. Mark Mathew Braunstein's advocacy for vegetarianism & drug law reform

to read older posts, scroll to bottom of this page, then click on View Older Posts, at bottom left corner

DRINKING OUTSIDE the BOTTLE inspires THINKING OUTSIDE the BOX

++++++++++

NOTHING to SAY: “i have nothing to say, and i am saying it, and that is cell phone talk,” with apologies to John Cage, so say the yahoos in our midst, who shout into their phones so all the world can hear what dullards they are, and as their cell phone talk is an affront to our ears, so too are cell phone towers a blight upon the landscape and a danger to bats and migrating birds, hence thank goodness for the advent of texting, a commendable offshoot of blogging, of which mine is a good example of a bad example, whisper whisper, hush hush

++++++++++

STUFF, MORE STUFF: we climb into the future supported by the fallen scaffolds of our pasts, of which we are reminded when we sort through all the "stuff" to which we have clung as a way of clinging to our lives, and worse is sorting through someone else's (for instance, our elderly parents’ "stuff," as they were too timid or lazy or decrepit to do so themselves, so if i've not used or looked at old letters or faded photos or dusty books or useless memorabilia during the past twenty years, then am less likely to do so during the next twenty, so to spare myself the bother of deliberating upon it again twenty years hence, that is if i live that long, and to spare someone else having to dump my stuff for me, because i probably won’t live that long, better to rid myself of it now

++++++++++

CALM & PEACE: some people comment upon what they perceive as my calmness and tranquility, which may be true relative only to their lack of it, and if they further query what imparts this to me, i venture three guesses: modesty, marijuana, and nature

number one? content with a modest income, i neither acquire nor cling to a lotta stuff, i've several times declined better paying jobs and instead accepted lower wage jobs that offered better working conditions, putting into action the words of Socrates as written by Plato, POVERTY IS MEASURED NOT BY HOW LITTLE ONE OWNS, BUT BY HOW MUCH ONE WANTS, to which effect i measure my wealth in avocados, because when i first developed an appreciation for California Haas avocados they cost $1 each, which at the time i could barely afford, so thereafter i have considered myself very wealthy if i am able to afford one avocado a day, and that i indeed have achieved, so i feel i am a very rich man, and my gratitude for my great wealth just might calm my soul

number two? marijuana, if i can afford a toke a day then for this too i feel i am a very rich man, though in practice i do not toke daily, but only once every three days, and more importantly, i do think marijuana calms the frenetic mind, maybe not your soul but it does calm mine

number three? nature, just sitting or walking in nature, whether the beach or the hills or the woods or the desert or the Grand Canyon or "my" Mamacoke Island, just sitting there and being and observing, which some might call meditating, that too calms my soul

and what stirs anxiety in me? for one thing, the sight of someone dressed all in black, as mostly only evil people look good dressed in black attire, from whom i suspect i should flee for my life, and for another thing, the smell of dead animals emanating from a kitchen or rising from a dinner plate, especially if the person eating from that plate is someone i know, i don’t care if he’s a stranger, but i feel disappointment if someone i know, as all strangers are a perfect strangers, and all strangers are perfect people, whereas those with whom we are acquainted divulge to us their imperfections, proving themselves to be imperfect people

++++++++++

BEING VEGETARIAN: been “almost” veg since 1966 at age 15 when I stopped eating mammals and birds but still ate fish and sea animals, then in 1967 at age 16 at dinner eating shrimps a friend told the story of how a week earlier his parents boiled a live lobster for dinner, which literally left a bad taste in my mouth, immediately prompting me to renounce eating any fish and sea animals, then during the summer of 1970 soon after working as a Good Humor ice cream salesman (“ring! ring!”, i became vegan upon my 19th birthday, back then not even vegetarians knew the word or its tenets, thus proving a crimp on one’s social life, as tho being just veg were not inhibiting enuf, and while shared food prohibitions may not in themselves serve as basis enuf for lasting friendship, they at least do not hinder it

don’t tell anyone, but i no longer care whether carnivores eat meat, indeed am almost glad they do, not because of the undeserved pain and misery they inflict upon the factory-farmed animals they eat, but because of their much deserved disease and misery they inflict upon themselves by eating factory-farmed meat, and while my credo in regards to such humans is not “I hope they all die,” i do confess to the credo of “Let them all die,” but remember, don’t tell anyone

thus in 1997, i ceased my writing and public speaking in support of vegetarianism and animal rights, and instead began my public advocacy for drug law reform, especially legalization of marijuana, not as noble a cause as vegetarianism and animal rights, but as an individual i’ve been especially effective in promoting a dialog and effecting some real progress, especially in Connecticut, whereas i can’t say the same with veg and AR, as every year billions of animals still join the death march to the slaughterhouse

++++++++++

NUTRITIONAL MENTORS: before he became our nation’s and our generation’s leading authority, if not guru, on holistic health, Andrew Weil wrote three seminal books about the recreational drug experience, for which he first attracted my attention, long before the rest of our world heard of him

his first book, The Natural Mind is pioneering, and laid the theoretical groundwork for his second book, The Marriage of the Sun and Moon, an anthology of mostly previously published articles of practical advice and personal testaments about the many modes available for getting high, ranging from the predictable buzz of marijuana to the unconventional high gotten by eating mangoes ripe right off the tree

during a stint of several years writing a food and healing column in Natural Health when it was still a respectable magazine that it no longer is, he began his series of books in advocacy of alternative healing practices, of which food played a major role, and even to this day i hold him in high regard, even after he “sold out” and promotes a line of supplements upon which he embedded his visage, and even though he endorses eating dead fish and a cornucopia of cooked foods, and despite his own lifelong obesity, which casts doubt on and pallor over everything he says, as he so very visibly remains incapable of practicing what he preaches

while i never met Weil, i was honored to befriend my other nutritional mentor, the raw foodist Viktoras Kulvinskas, who bestowed upon me a glowing foreword to the first edition of my first book when we were frequent pen pals, a correspondence which spanned from the late 1970’s to the late 1980’s, but in the early 90’s instead of personal notes i began receiving form letters from him soliciting me to join his network marketing teams and consequently promoting his network marketing schemes, for which my respect for him got knocked down several notches

he is so very loving and generous, especially through his missionary educational outreach, but also since the 90’s he has pyramid marketed enzyme pills and bluegreen algae, ok to do if one does not earn enough from one’s writing to make a living from it, as neither do i, but a fine line exists between being an educator who happens to sell some products, to being a marketer who merely poses as an educator, a fine line which both of my nutritional mentors have traversed, and so no longer serve as my mentors, hence i follow no one, hence i stand alone

++++++++++

ADMIRE the MIRE: some people admire their gurus or their teachers or their mentors or their lovers, whereas i admire the mire and the muck

i never had a GURU

now that i am too old to be their student i realize that most of my past teachers were at the time already too old to be teachers, but oneTEACHER i did admire, he was my art history professor when i was a student in the 1970s with whom i remained lifelong friends, i visited him and his wife almost every year for 35 years until his death, it was he who ignited my love for Rembrandt as well as R’s other Dutch contemporaries, and he who encouraged me to write when at the time i had aspired to paint

i did have a MENTOR who i admired, among the many of the world's spiritual masters, Buddha, Christ, Moses, Mohammed, Zoroaster, et al, as espoused through the writings of Plato he who admired most was Socrates, but many years have passed since i last read Plato, and i've forgotten much of what i read, and do not envision myself returning to reading any of it again

i once had a LOVER who i admired, she has run a yoga studio way ahead the fad and the pack, all her yoga students of every age admire her as much for her instruction as for her teachings while instructing, but her need to keep our love relationship concealed from her colleagues lest her world think she were merely human certainly disappointed me and made me realize she was merely human, like the rest of us mere mortals

as i presently lack anyone in my life whom i can admire, i suppose that the life i live is mine, all mine

++++++++++

BELIEVING is SEEING: it is one thing to understand what we ourselves see, another to understand ourselves thru what we see, and yet another to understand ourselves thru what others see in us

two photos of the same person rarely look the same, and only barely portray the person, whereas ten photos of the same person taken from ten different angles and on ten different days would offer a better view, even though only five of them would look accurate, and the other five as though of someone else, and among the five inaccurate depictions very likely will be the one that shines a light to make us glow, so know in advance that the one glowing photo that we choose with which to brand ourselves, for instance on one’s DeFacebook profile, has nothing to do with how we really look to the world, but everything to do with how we look to ourselves

++++++++++

VAN GOGH’s SELF-PORTRAITS: a rich and rewarding website that offers all of Vincent painting’s, and the self-portraits specifically, at: << www.vggallery.com/painting/main_se.htm >> which reminds me of a lover who during the process of dumping me enumerated her objections against me, most which i must admit were well founded, except for one, which i could not fathom, namely her objection to the reproductions of Van Gogh paintings upon my walls, and especially my own painting of a Vincent/Mark self-portrait, which she said spooked her

++++++++++

FEMININITY: women can be bitches no less than men can be sons of bitches, but pound for pound i count femininity in higher regard than masculinity, and harbor the notion that given two candidates for public office about whom i know nothing but gender, i will vote for the woman over the man, and tho i never wanted chiIdren, were i to have fathered a child i could imagine bringing into this world only a daughter

++++++++++

MARRIAGE: i’ve never gotten married, nor have i ever gotten divorced, but i’ve twice “almost gotten married,” and the two women i almost married to this day have never married either, which might not be merely coincidental

the first “almost wife” wanted a child while i wanted none, we couldn't compromise on one-half, the second “almost wife” claimed to agree to not want a child, but i never believed her, so now never having married, my best friends are my former female lovers, and i’ve remained good friends with both “almost wives”

of many loves lost, i've regretted only one love, all the others i recall with fondness, in part because i've usually been the one to end it before either one of us would regret anything, for instance i've almost always gone from one relationship to none, whereas most other people leave one relationship precisely to enter into another, or because they've already begun it concurrently (ie, cheating), which at least one of the three parties regrets

in regards to romantic love, i never pledge fidelity, but instead pledge honesty, and honesty means not only telling no lies, but also keeping no secrets, hence better for two lovers to pledge honesty than for them to pledge fidelity

monogamy is a noble ideal, but for the male of most mammal species far from the real, for instance among deer, a herd can have one buck and 40 does, and there will be 40 pregnant does, which conduct is just the species’ way of perpetuating itself

++++++++++

CELIBACY: at age 26, while living in Manhattan i dealt with rampant promiscuity (others', not mine) by declaring celibacy, and actually upheld my bout of youthful abstinence for fully a year, in hopes that just as one year of vegetarianism vanquished any desire to eat meat, that sexual urges would follow suit, but found just the opposite, i had sex on my mind more than ever before, so allowed nature to take its course, and thereby took a load off my mind, proving i am not a monk

++++++++++

CARNAL DESIRES: i hardly consider any of my abstinences as sacrifice, rather i eat everything i desire, i just desire only foods that are nourishing and have no desire whatsoever for all the crap that most americans relish, for instance i love avocadoes and mangoes and persimmons and sprouts and kale and buckwheat and rice and everything nice, likewise my sexual desires, i find appealing only women whose bodies look if not youthful at least healthy, so find unappealing most women that the mass of men desire

++++++++++

LASSIE, GO HOME: as a child raised in a home without any cats or dogs, i loved the tv Lassie, perhaps more than most children my age as the tv lassie served as my surrogate hairy beast, while now that i am old and decrepit the only episodes i recall are the three-part saga of the Lassie number 2 lost in the wilderness, and the transitional single episode when the family of Timmy number 1 moved out and the family of Timmy 2 moved in, an intimation of aging and death which probably scared the pants off me

++++++++++

REIGNING CATS & DOGS: i do like cats and dogs (and cats and dogs do like me), just as i do like elephants and hippopotami and do love “my” deer and “my” rabbits, but i would not want to keep captive and share my bedroom and kitchen with any of them, whereas “cat ladies” who allow their cats to roam freely in their homes, including their kitchen counters, inevitably include cat hairs as an ingredient in all their recipes, so that while i sure like cats and i sure like women, i have learned to avoid cat ladies, because they place their love of humans second to their love of cats, and seem obsessive about their cats and seem unwilling to relate to humans, as they cry into cat fur that humans do not understand them

since a junior in college, and except for brief intermittent courtships, i have always lived alone, when people tell me they live alone, i ask, do you share your home with a cat or dog? usually they answer yes, to which i then say, well then you do not live alone

people who share their homes with mammals indoors invariably live by a standard of cleanliness several notches lower than mine, as they adhere to the dictum of a sign in a restaurant that advised: if our quality and service do not meet your standards, then please lower your standards

++++++++++

KING KONG: as a child raised in NYC, i well remember at age 6 seeing the Empire State Bldg looming on the distant horizon, which even back then brought to my mind the original 1933 King Kong, which however did not accurately portray the habits and demeanor of a true mountain gorilla, not for lack of effort or intention, but for lack of knowledge, as the first mountain gorilla was discovered only in 1901, and how remarkable mankind (and i do mean MAN) is, in less than 100 years managing to snare and to shoot the subspecies into the oblivion of near extinction

King Kong nevertheless contributed to my present adoration of gorillas, so i eagerly awaited its second remake, but once the explorers entered the island's jungle the bombastic special effects bored me, i wish at least half an hour from the battling dinosaur scenes were deleted, nonetheless the NYC front and back segments were historically edifying and emotionally endearing, indeed the upgraded love story between beauty and the beast really touched my heart, and the simulated mating scene on the frozen pond in Central Park deeply moved me, and as the dying KK relinquished his grip and slid out of sight from us i almost cried, as i rooted for the country boy lost in the big city

++++++++++

CHILD LOST in SUBURBIA: born in NYC, i later was raised on Long Island in Massapequa Park, which actually does have a park, now accorded status as a state park, but when i lived there we called it simply The Woods, and now looking on a map i see how privileged i was to live near and play and later wander so often in The Woods, as to the north cutesy Bethpage State Park is mostly a golf course, and the next nearest park is 10 miles away

thankful to have escaped all cities, where i lived most of my adult life, and especially to have escaped long island (known to its natives as Lunk iLunt) suburbia, for the past 24 years i have lived where coyotes howl at the moon, where deer graze outside my window, and where nearly every evening in the spring i witness the aerial mating dance of woodcocks, andwhile thankful to live where i now live, i am equally thankful that so many people live in cities, because if they did not live There, they instead would live Here

++++++++++++++++

WINDOW KILL: as a child, i often tended to stunned birds that had flown into windows, guarding them from predators until they regained consciousness, if they did regain consciousness, one time a stunned northern flicker (called yellow-shafted flickers back then, dunno why the name change) died in my hand

it struck the window, but it also struck me with its beauty, and was for me the 10 year old what might be termed a defining moment, it being my life’s first first-hand witnessing of death

++++++++++++++++

RUNNING on EMPTY (JOGGING): what are you running from? aging and its incipient disability? decadence and its consequential obesity? boredom and its accompanying triviality? life and its inevitable death?

++++++++++++++++

TERMINAL CANCER: i had a friend who died of cancer, which if such a thing is possible eventually spread to nearly every part of her body, so after a 15 year struggle of non-invasive non-western-med treatments, including primarily raw foods, she finally gave up the ghost, by which time she was a ghost, as the only thing about her that remained human was her pain and misery, apparent to me when i visited her at home less than a week before her death, so i departed with these parting words: "death is beautiful ... dying is ugly ... but death is beautiful," in response to which she smiled and said as though singing a hymn: "yes," yet despite her smile during her final months her face had aged tenfold, and i assume the rest of her body too, as the 55 year old looked 85, and at 85 her time was up

++++++++++++++++

the MARCH of TIME: if you ever find yourself (probably lost) in Hyde Park on Chicago's south side, go to Midway Park just south of the University of Chicago, there's a larger-than-lifesize sculpture there by lorado taft i thought titled The Fountain of Time, a procession of humans from birth to youth to old age forms one group, and off by itself viewing the procession is the standing cloaked figure of Time (Death)

the poem it illustrates is Time asking, "Time marches on? No, Time stands still. Humanity marches on .... " (that's how i remember it, though in fact my memory has significantly enhanced those lines)

http/illustrationart.blogspot.com/2008/11/lorado-tafts-fountain-of-time.html

at class reunions, we view the march of time etched upon the human face of our classmates, and we marvel and find revelatory how some will still look as youthful as when we knew them, while other classmates, especially those who became parents, will look as old as our parents

am now a sexy sexagenarian, and i have some bad news to share with you, i went to my doctor last week and he told me the results of some tests, he said i have only 20 years left to live

(joke)

++++++++++++++++