Apocalypse recipe: One year of sustenance

My longtime friend, the esteemed writer Ian Williams, lives in New York City. When the 9/11 horribility hit, Ian and his wife and sister were some of the people who actually ran towards the towers as they fell — not literally, but almost — and they stepped up during the tragedy to … well, to do a lot of things, but basically to facilitate the emergency workers’ ability to do their jobs in the first days. Cajoling gourmet food from restaurants, finding clean bottled water, helping lost children find their parents, passing out clean T-shirts in rainstorms to people covered in dead-body dust, what have you.

Yeah. Gnarly sheeyit, as they say here in California.

Governmental and media response to the tragedy — followed by a cokehead fratboy’s team of Satanic engineers brazenly stealing the last American Presidential election from a decorated war hero (four years after they brazenly stole it from a future Nobel prizewinner) — prompted Ian to propose a new country called American Coastopia. Which caused a nationwide shitstorm of Republican oh-no-you-didn’t-style fallout, which was fun to watch. Anyhoo.

Suffice to say, Ian now takes the idea of apocalyptic-incident preparedness even more seriously than I do. He asked his aunt, who is Amish or something equally as wholesome and closer to the natural way of doing things than most white people are, to compile a list of foods that would allow him and his family to survive a year in his apartment in Brooklyn.

So here’s a repost of the list. I’m not so sure about the food proportions — I for one would want black beans instead of Navy, and way more than 1 gallon of brown rice in a year — but tailor the ingredients to your own dining style.

“Alright, toots, the terrorists have finally won, so let’s take one last look at the outside of our house”

——

SUGGESTED FOOD STORAGE PROGRAM FOR ONE ADULT FOR ONE YEAR

Wheat: three 5 gallon cans

Milk: Instant Dry Non-fat (vacuum-sealed can) four 5 lb. cans (100 quarts)
They now have a Rice Dream Soy milk in different flavors is in the stores in cardboard containers which tastes good, has a good storage life, but not that of the dry milk.

Honey: 25 pounds … REALLY NECESSARY – GOOD FOR YOU AND TASTES GOOD add to other things instead of sugar

Beans: White small Navy beans 1 gallon can

Peas: Split dried 1 gallon can

Rice: Brown 1 gallon can

Corn: Golden Bantam dehydrated and vacuum sealed 1 #10 can

Carrots: diced, dehydrated and vacuum sealed 1 #10 can

Optional Veg.: dehydrated and vacuum sealed 1 #10 can

Fruits: dehydrated assorted applesauce nuggets, apple slices,
date nuggets, peach slices, fruit galaxy 6 #10 cans

Multi-purpose food: anything else dehydrated

Yeast: dry 1 sealed 4 oz. can (can be kept in the freezer)

Sea Salt: iodized dry 2 one lb. Canisters

Vitamin C: 1000 tablets in bottles.

The above will keep you alive for a year but would be very boring. Instead of a lot of the above, I would get a lot of canned fruits, vegetables, and canned meats that you would eat. Tuna stays well. Rotate these goods. Make sure you have a supply of toilet paper and first aid supplies.

The above calls for yeast and salt. I would also suggest baking soda (which can be used as toothpaste and medicine), starch (to make gravy), and a bunch of packets like taco mix, Asian mixes, gravy mixes, etc. to make your food more interesting.

(BONUS: Also from Ian’s aunt. The following items might be the most pressing things to get together first. Super similar to my and Otto’s Starter Kit for the Apocalypse, so you might want to cross-reference both lists during your fun, Tupperware-style Apocalypse Kit parties)

The following is a 72-hour kit that can be put in a wheeled-pullable suitcase or a backpack.

FIRST AID KIT:
cold packs
space blanket
alcohol swabs
tweezers
Q-Tips
Vaseline
Lip sun screen
scissors
thermometer
medicine spoon
2 gauze bandages 2 in.
Desitin (optional)
10 Gauze pads 4 x 4
10 gauze pads 4 x 3
10 butterfly bandages
1 roll first aid tape
first aid book

PERSONAL ITEMS:
Plastic tarp
feminine hygiene items
shovel
Kleenex
plastic cup, plate, bowl
flatware
aluminum foil
mirror
sewing kit
plastic bags
bomb (?! … uh, Molotov Cocktail, perhaps? -ed.)
handi-wipes
mouthwash
good book
tooth paste
playing cards
tooth brush
razor and blades
shaving cream
aloe vera cream
shampoo
soap
deodorant
string
candles
water-proof matches
flashlight
batteries
trash sacks (1 of all sizes)
all purpose knife
paper tablet
ball point pen
whistle
complete change of clothes
glasses or other needy personal items

REPLACEABLES
aspirin
Tylenol
Peroxide
Ipecac
Neosporin
water tablets
baking soda
personal medications

OTHER ITEMS:
cooking device/fuel
dish soap
can opener
snacks
food for 6 meals
bottled water
toilet paper
paper towels
aluminum foil

—–

Oh yeah and one final point: Ian noticed that during 9/11, half the people trying to evacuate the area with the pull kind of stewardess luggage were ALSO running down the street with a broken suitcase. The wheels on the cheap ones pop off easily, especially if you’re running amongst rocks and debris. So either splurge on the good stuff, get an outer-frame backpack instead if you’re strong, or pimp out your own luggage cart with shocks.

… and there you have it. Get thee to a cannery and a hippie food store, and thank you for shopping for the Apocalypse … because if you try to steal someone else’s food when it all goes down, all you might get is a mouthful of lead.

Think I’m kidding? See above. Even nice Midwestern ladies will be stashin’ bombs in their go-packs.

(Q: Why am I so survivalist these days?
A: I dunno, ask Dick Cheney)

“You have reached the voicemail for Hell…”

Call this number.

Do it now.

(415) 648-4112

I myself left a detailed — yet respectful — message for Satan’s secretary Aleister Crowley about how Tom Cruise has been getting out of control, and how they should probably pick someone else to assume the Number of the Beast now that L. Ron Hubbard is dead.

I was going to add a “Hail Xenu” at the end of the message … but I’m not really sure if the Dark Lord is homies with THAT weirdo.

(Seriously, click on the links up in here. Hours of entertainment.)

My 7 favorite jokes

… in which I attempt to exorcise the small collection of zingers I tell over and over again, once and for all, so that I am forced to find new ones. Anybody? Chime in.
_____

Q: What’s orange and looks good on a hippie?
A: Fire.
_____

Q: What’s the difference between a hippie and an onion?
A: Nobody cries when you cut a hippie.
_____

Q: Why does a chicken coop only have 2 doors?
A: Because if it had 4 doors it would be a chicken sedan.
_____

Q: What does a San Francisco stripper do with her asshole before she goes to work?
A: Drops him off at band practice and gives him 20 bucks.
_____

Q: What do Woody Allen and Kodak have in common?
A: They both come in a little yellow box.
_____

Q: What do Yoko Ono and Ethiopia have in common?
A: They both live off of dead beatles.
_____

Q: Why do hippies wear patchouli?
A: So blind people can hate them too.
_____

Thank you! Goodnight.

To Chris Radcliffe: Happy bachelor party weekend, you beautiful freak

This would explain a LOT

Something else I learned from Journey of Man:

When a baby is born … the X chromosomes get mixed together every time they’re passed along. Girls get one X from Mom and one X from Dad. Therefore, the marker with which scientists would’ve been able to trace the matrilineal line geneologically back to the beginning of creation is muddled in the DNA soup. They can’t find who the original mother is — only the original father, the ancient male in Namibia from whom every human on the planet is descended.

But Y chromosomes — girls are XX and boys are XY if yall can’t remember — Y chromosomes are passed from father to son UNCHANGED. Throughout the generations. This is how they found out we’re all from Namibia.

Again: Y chromosomes are passed from father to son UNCHANGED. The X is the variable. The Y is the constant. Not sure how all men on Earth don’t all have the same Y and all look the same, but it’s something like that.

Stuff makes a tiny bit more sense now.

Bible stories about ruthless leaders killing the first-born male of every household in rival kingdoms …

God Himself even threatening the same thing …

The near-worldwide cultural importance males place on bearing a son instead of a daughter …

Why men feel they have a say in women’s sex lives and reproductive rights, and why most everywhere they control it with a chokehold combination of religion and force …

All the way to the old standby headline ‘MAN KILLS WIFE AND TWO CHILDREN BEFORE TURNING GUN ON HIMSELF IN A CROWDED 7-11 PARKING LOT’ …

Yeah.

I guess men are genetically encoded to feel protective of their own blood relatives for a slightly different reason than women are.

I have no point or proclamation. No emotions to superimpose upon this fact-find I stumbled across. Just a profound sense of eureka.

… and each of them harbored their own agenda. The end

——

“That same night I will pass through Egypt and kill the first-born son in every family and the first-born male of all animals. I am the LORD, and I will punish the gods of Egypt. The blood on the houses will show me where you live, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. Then you won’t be bothered by the terrible disasters I will bring on Egypt”. -Exodus 12: 13

p.s. more about the X.

How we got here

Holed up at a friend’s house in the usual avoid-reality post-festival freakout. Avoiding TV like the plague, watching stupid movies, and being enlightened by one DVD in particular: the PBS documentary Journey of Man.

I grew up soaking in Southern Baptist rhetoric, and while everyone else was busy learning evolution in junior high, I attended an evangelical Christian school where they taught us that people and dinosaurs walked the Earth at the same time … because the Bible says they did. So, for people like me who never got the full scoop, here’s a rundown of the show.

Everyone alive today is related. Think about that. It’s possible to work out the past by blood type, and the key lies in distant populations. They’ve traced it all using DNA samples and whatnot. Blood.

The Earth now holds 6 billion people. Our species only numbered 10,000 when a small band left their African homeland on a journey into an unknown, hostile world. Those people are the ones we’re related to. Evidence shows they were superhuman — resilient, strong, fast, and adaptable.

We’re all descended from the San Bushmen tribe in Namibia. We all live in grass and mud huts. We don’t give a shit about the newest coffee table. Do we?

hello, cousin

We do now. We do it, and we don’t even know why. We spread like a virus, at the tippy-tail end of the ape-to-human transformation. And here we are, shitting all over everything. The supernova of flesh and pollution, ready to transform into destruction and nothingness — or to pare back down to a manageable level. We are due for an extinction-level event, you know. Everyone says so.

Anyhoo, this migration also heralded an explosion of creativity. Ritual burial of the dead. Art in caves. Use of materials like bone. The first sensitive artist was born around this time. (Maybe he lost his girlfriend in a tragic raft-building accident and picked up a stick and started writing poetry … maybe she got mad at her tribe for telling her girls weren’t allowed on the hunt, so she fashioned a fake buffalo out of straw and mud and destroyed it with a spear …)

Every archaeological dig of that era shows a balloon of consciousness. When our first cousins left Africa, they had state-of-the-art hunting technology and a brand new language with which to communicate ideas. It used clicks. The Bushmen are still the only people in the world who click.

—–

Between 70,000 and 50,000 years ago, the global ice age came. There was a sharp drop in temperature around 72,000 years ago and the sea retreated. Deserts in Africa grew, sea levels dropped, and ice appeared everywhere. Lush pasture turned to desert, and hunters who used to have easy pickins found themselves searching desperately for food. Between 60,000 and 30,000 years ago there were so few humans, plants, and animals on the planet that scientists have trouble finding any archaeological record of homo sapiens during that period.

Humanity was on the verge of extinction, and a small band of smart and daring revolutionaries decided they needed to raise the fuck up on out of there in order to survive. So they turned up in AUSTRALIA, of all places. Our next relatives on the timeline all hail from aboriginal Oz. How do they know? … The only primate species ever to have lived in Australia is homo sapiens, so another tribe of us did not evolve there from primates. We had to get there from Namibia.

But how? … We traveled onshore from Africa through India and along the coast to Australia. No evidence remains, because the route was easy — just beach, aside from only 150 miles of open ocean. It has since been buried by water.

our brothers Larry, Darryl, and Darryl
——-

Then Europeans, Asians, and Native Americans were next to appear.

Everyone else besides the Aboriginals shares a common ancestor in one man they can trace back to those of the same (or a similar) group who left Africa but went the other way — to the Middle East — 45,000 years ago.

One branch of migrants from the Middle East made its way swiftly into India. They were so successful that their numbers quickly multiplied and swamped the original coastal migration evidence.

Another group went to China, remaining in isolation, sealed in by moutains and the sea — and developing a distinct culture, language, and appearance. Two groups went to China via different routes in a pincher type movement.

But nobody lived in Europe yet, even though it was a hop skip and a jump from Ur. We took 10,000 years to reach Europe from the Middle East. Why?

Cro Magnons were the first northern Europeans, the first cavemen with an artistic side. The original cave-painters — ostensibly because they were new arrivals, and the caves became a sort of sanctuary. The paintings look like postcards of an ancient world … a journey that lasted through the beginnings of the Ice Age. They drew woolly mammoths, bison, ibex, and other creatures not found in the Middle East — so where had they been? Wherever it was, they toughened up. They took over caves where bears hibernated for the winter. The Cro-Magnons generally cut an impressive figure, towering over 6 feet tall. They arrived with African body proportions, adapted to warmer conditions, and grew long and skinny. They made clothing and housing to adapt to the colder weather …

… and then the Ice Age cut them off from the rest of the world. Their hair color changed, the shape of their noses, even their height. That’s why honkies look so different. Not enough UV rays got through to let us synthesize Vitamin D from sunshine, and we wore clothes, so our skin was forced to lighten its melanin in order to absorb more.

So why did we take 10,000 years to land in Europe? The answer to the mystery: We took a detour to central Asia. Kyrgystan. That’s how come we drew bison in the caves. The African hunters followed the grassland into central Kyrgystan before going West.

Then, 20,000 years ago, some left central Asia to migrate to the Americas over very arctic conditions during the height of the Ice Age. Some stayed along the way, and became the Chukchi (Russian nomads), the Inuit, and Eskimos. Living inside the arctic circle 15,000 years ago, these humans became shorter, with shorter appendages and fingers to keep a furnace of one’s own body heat stoked at all times under heavy animal clothing.

Thirteen thousand years ago, a group of 10-20 people made it past Alaska across the Bering Strait after the Earth heated back up. Yes, only 10-20 people. After 10,000 years of struggling through the tundra, this small band of nomadic hunters hit the jackpot with America.

In only 800 years, these nomads’ numbers swelled to where people lived all over North and South America. The Navajo are directly descended from the Chukchi.

hi, Mamaw and Poppa

—–

According to James Kunstler’s book The Long Emergency, peak oil passed in the ’70s, and as an industrial society, we are screwed. Things are about to fundamentally change, for good. Those without nearby land to grow food (and, some would argue, the firearms to protect themselves) will shortly be fucked … likely by members of the “former and aggrieved middle class” who are used to the whole give-me-convenience-or-give-me-death lifestyle. I for one have met certain members of country clubs who would probably open fire on anyone who stole their china or told them they had lost their life savings due to the machinations of their beloved ruling class.

And a recent, $24-million U.N. study says that in our short time on the planet, HUMANS (not mammals) have used up a staggering 60 percent of the world’s resources. We have altered the planet more quickly, jarringly, and irreversibly in the past 50 years than at any other comparable time in human history. And America burns through … how many percents of the world’s resources?

Blah blah blah. Boring boring boring. Everyone knows this. Right? Like Agent Smith says in The Matrix: We are a plague. So what do we do?

Nothing? Is it too late?

Why did the first San Bushpeople leave? Were they driven out, like Lucifer from Heaven and Eve from the Garden of Eden? … Did they have no choice, or did they see it coming? … Were they hungry? Were they just bored? Did they crave knowledge, or different people to make out with? Something beyond themselves and their immediate experience? … Sinners! Also: Those who enabled us to survive!

Nothing makes a body fight like the struggle for food, shelter, and breeding partners. And isn’t that when stuff starts to really happen? When you get so hungry you imagine a world beyond your everyday life, and you venture out into the unknown?

Convenience is all around us, but only when we make ourselves uncomfortable can we truly learn anything.

I don’t know about you, but all this laziness, gluttony, and solipsism is making me hungry.

when will it all go dark again?

Dear Gate,

October 4, 007
Gerlach, NV

It is with semi-tight shoulders that I report to you that the Black Hole got a yellow on the MOOP map this year.

Yellow. Not green.

We tried. We tried so hard. We cleaned up all the big shit and put it in the right trailers and boxes and oversaw transpo and then MOOPed our asses off. Busting dunes by hand with a rake. Digging out burn scars. Going over and over the site. Staying later than the other crews each day and using whiskey as a work tool. *burp*

C-Load came out for the weekend to do line sweeps with us. When we found out we were near the Black Hole, we strolled ahead one block to make sure we’d cleared everything. There was nothing there. One cigarette butt, maybe. I didn’t pick up a damn thing and I even full-contact MOOPed the site — crawling on my hands and knees through some newly-formed dunes in chicken pants and a tank top, killing two birds with one stone. Skin exfoliation feels nice.

There was no doubt in our minds we’d get green. We were shocked — SHOCKED — to receive a yellow. 13 was so ornery about it she even got drunk on ginaritas that night and pimp-slapped a couple people with her flip-flop in the Black Rock Saloon. I myself swallowed a fair amount of vodka and found myself looking around for something to beat up. But C-Load brought us a dozen roses each, so that made it better.

Only thing we can think of is that the cleanup managers mistook the border between Commissary and the Black Hole — which changed no less than SIX times during setup — or that some trash from Commissary blew over. To me, it looked like the line sweepers walked through our site without picking up hardly anything at all. But I couldn’t be everywhere at once.

However, all the managers have told me that 13 and I should be exceedingly proud of our yellow. That in past years, the Black Hole has been so red they considered making up a new category: Black (of course). That it took a crew of 20 to 30 people about 4 or 5 different tries to line-sweep the DPW ghetto this season, and the ghetto got a yellow too.

I think for a crew of 3 to 6 people — me, 13, Bloody Knuckles, and a little bit o’ Low Rent and Aristotle and Moses for a couple days there — we KICKED ASS.

We almost got yellow with green stripes, even. Then when Wilde Childe went out with them to look it over and discuss our score (again), they found a tent stake that the MOOP line also missed. But hey: the “Event Horizon” (our camping area across the street) got green. It was just the Black Hole itself that scored a yellow.

More importantly, and largely thanks to the efforts of Super MOOPer ™ Bloody Knuckles … (drum roll, please) … Gate Road, the Gate site, and D-lot were all so clean that they didn’t even send a MOOP crew out to go over it. At all.

That’s right. You heard me.

I stenciled this on everything.
Overheard this morning in the Burning Man Gerlach office:
“We should totally get pink DPW shirts next year.”
“What, are we trying to out-gay the Gate now?”

There is snow on the mountains today. Half the crew has already headed to Reno and points beyond, and we’re trying to decide if we’d rather spend money amongst the blinky lights of Reno and get overserved by Jirish Mike at the Hideout … or if we’d rather chill out in Gerlach and sew clothes and be around a whole lotta no-people for one more night before the rude re-entry to civilization comes tomorrow.

Of course, as with everything, we’re flying by the seat of our pants. Hope to see you all at Decompression on Sunday.

And may I say: Even though I didn’t see hardly any art, visit any theme camps, go dancing one time, or set foot into the Cafe at all … I truly had the best Burning Man of my life. You Gate fuckers are SICK.

Love,
Summer

Golden T-Stake ceremony: photos

Yesterday was the last day of Burning Man cleanup on the playa. Today, the Bureau of Land Management came to inspect the site, to see if the DPW did a good enough job picking up after 48,000 people.

We passed with flying, pirate-flag, I’ll-show-you-Leave-No-Trace colors.

The Golden T-Stake, pounded in at the end of the City map on 10:00, was the last large foreign object remaining from Burning Man on the playa. To celebrate another job well done, we all gathered this afternoon to watch it get pulled out of the ground by the Playa Restoration managers.

After a morning spent cleaning the trailer park and waiting for last night’s party to wear off, we ate lunch and climbed on the bus for one last ride to the worksite.

Judging from the bus graffiti, DPW as a whole are not as literate or quick-witted as they used to be.

The ceremony go-time got pushed back because there was a strange — REALLY strange — dust-storm “wall” stuck in the same place all morning long. It just lingered there, not moving or dissipating. Truly an anomaly.

I mean really. This thing was big. Multi-layered.

Meanwhile, they tricked us (not really) into MOOPing the shoreline where we gathered for morning meeting and lunch every day. Not much there, so we drank beers.

Finally, the wall moved back and we rolled out to the site, where Gage tested the structural integrity of the Golden T-Stake by practicing a little chi gung.

D.A. gave us a really heartfelt and eloquent “we did it” speech — and then christened the stake by breaking a beer bottle on it. MOOP!

Luckily we’re trained to the point of swift Pavlovian response.

Like any good manager, D.A. delegated the task of Golden T-Stake removal to Mel, our cleanup goddess.

But whoever pounded the Golden T-Stake in the ground did a bang-up job.

Damn thing wouldn’t move, even with digging.

Luckily, the DPW are a helpful bunch.

The Wall laid a little lower, and watched the whole thing from a distance.

After some champagne and light wrestling, it was time to pile back on the bus for the last time this year.

And we came back to Gerlach, to the Black Rock Estates trailer park, to start packing and say goodbye to home.

Cheer up, DPW. Like D.A. said at the ceremony: ONLY 335 DAYS ‘TIL CLEANUP.

My dad was right

I do live in an adult version of Never Never Land.

Of course, he was talking about San Francisco. But if he could see me out here, he’d REALLY roll his eyes.

I have barely handled money in a month. Maybe twice. I have no idea what’s in my purse, or where my purse is. Or what day it is. I haven’t shopped for anything other than gas and food, and even then, not much.

I’ve heard little news of the outside world. I haven’t spoken to anyone at home more than once. I haven’t seen my dog (which is the only bad and painful part). As for computering, I only do blog entries and check my messages and then get offline as soon as I can — to hang out again with the same hundred-or-so people.

I’ve taken excellent mini-”vacations” from this already awesome place.

Yes, the accommodations are slim.

But the view is nice.

We get room and board to look for buried treasure.

I miss some of my old Neverland friends — some of them really badly. The ones whose names are carved in the bar with mine so deep they’ve already been partially worn away.

Even the dogs have fun, especially on the night of the DPW Talent Show, when brave souls compete in the “Chubby Weenie” contest, in which the winner shoves the greatest number of Vienna sausages into his or her mouth at once. Some contestants don’t make it without retching. (This year a Gate worker won. Woo! GATE PRIDE)

We even have our own clubhouse.

And we’re miles away from everything, bonding like a wild dogpack in cowboy desert paradise.

All we’re missing is Dr. Hook. Though I think there are a few people here who could substitute in a pinch.

(sigh, this is the last day of MOOPing and then we go home soon … tomorrow’s the inspection, cross yr fingers)