Longing, Searching, and Discovering

Among all the great things we have here in America, two of my favorites are whiskey and Coke.



Let's say you’ve got this whiskey that’s aged in old wooden barrels in a gnarly backwardsass cabin somewhere in Oregon. It’s got a just classic, full-bodied taste that no man can deny, and an almost creamy sensation that brings you back to the days of sucking on your mother's tit. It warms your body and your soul in a way that is just essential simply because it helps you let go for a little bit. It lets you float backwards downstream like you’re supposed to, oblivious to the waterfall you've created in your mind that supposedly lies ahead.

Then you’ve got this Coke right, this thing to drink and it’s full of sugar and carbonation, which are essentially just material, but nonetheless momentarily make you feel pretty happy. And that is California at its finest. It’s made in a factory by a corporation that is committing just atrocities in terms of labor and destruction of ecosystems, but is still able to convince you that it is real, that this sugary, carbonated beverage called Coke with a capital C is real, and they’ve succeeded. The Coca-Cola logo is the most recognizable image in the world today.

So now in the year 2007, straight Oregon is drunk by only a few because California is just too powerful, it's too sweet. And the people who are still drinking straight, home cooked Oregon are living out in the middle of nowhere and are most of the time completely oblivious to California's atrocities in the "real world". But somehow California produces some good too. It at the same time consumes us, rapes us, and kills us, but yet still defines us whether we like it or not, but that shouldn’t lead us to believe it’s the best or the worst thing that’s ever happened because it’s just something that happened, and its virtue will be something people contemplate for many years to come.

So I’m up in Oregon for the first time at this crazy four-day-party a band called the String Cheese Incident liked to throw down and by golly its coke and whiskey in a glass on the rocks. There's glitter and glow sticks and costumes and music that people are paying good money to see and experience, and it's sweet. And they've got this amazing venue for art from crazy lights to outrageous sound systems that just couldn’t have ever existed if it weren’t for all the California in the world.

And on the same token, you’ve got people camping in these beautiful Oregon woods, dancing barefoot under a blanket of stars in soft sand, taking care of their own trash, playing with their kids, and giving gifts of goods and services just for the warm feeling it provides, the letting go of it all, the wonder of just floating downstream.

And then to top it all off you’ve got this ice in the form of performance artists floating down from the chilly north, from Vancouver and Whistler, and they cool it all down super hard by just putting people in ah! of how beautifully refreshing it is when we combine these forces and how powerful the sum of their parts can be.

And as you drink this whiskey and coke on the rocks, you think to drink it slow because it’s so much to take in. And as you become settled with it, comfortable with it, and think you might be ready for another, you notice that a storm has actually been brewing within both you and the drink. Because the next time you look at your glass, you realize something separate but yet completely connected to all of the parties involved has formed, because on the outside of your glass, out of nowhere, rain has started to fall.

And as the rain falls, maybe you catch a glimpse of yourself in one of its drops. Maybe you see that you too were a part of this creative process, that YOU, were somehow, somewhere in the coke, in the whiskey, in the ice, in it all. And if that’s not the case, and maybe you’ve been drinking whiskey or coke, or any combination of the two for too long, maybe you’re ready for a change, maybe for some lightning to strike in your storm, and that lightning could literally lie in colorless, odorless drops, just like the ones hanging out on the outside of your glass. But if you're not into that, just take it easy like a wise elder such as Jerry Garcia would, and mix your drink and let it sit a while in the sun.

Let that rain really come down, let it all mix together perfectly, and when its time to lift it up and take a sip, just take a look at what’s lying in that chemistry project’s little wake--nowhere does it begin, nowhere does it end, but its everywhere we go--and that, my friend, just might be enough to make the rain fall from your eyes, but if it doesn't, at least we'll all, for many years to come, have the satisfaction of knowing that you tried.