Seeking friend to go to Penn Gathering 8/12 - 8/19

SEE MY PICS IN MY GALLLERY

First, here's a little information about me:

I am very much a free spirit, and am sincerely looking for someone with whom I might share some common ground with. Realistically, I know that you will be different from me, but hey, that's what will make you so special and interesting to me.

Let's go out and try new, different and interesting experiences together. I think that that would be a wonderful way to get to know each other.

This is with the expectation that this is a process which will happen over time, and not all at once. Inasmuch that I might like to experience with you everything in life which is worth trying, I know that life is too short for that.

So, I've drawn some inspiration in life from Robert Louis Stevenson's story, "The Suicide Club," in which a group of Londoners live each day as if it were their last. That's been a credo which I've tried to live by.

That's why I care a good deal about the quality of a friendship. I want to understand you and have you share with me your thoughts and ideas. Quite simply, I think that getting to know you is half the journey.

Similarly, I care about the way we relate to art, music, literature and the way we interact with our environment and the communities we live in.

I am especially passionate about participatory, underground artsy projects. For example, I participated in the Quiet Project, where I was among 80 or so "citizens" living in Japanese-style sleeping pods in a Tribeca loft as part of an avant garde film documentary.

And when I am not having fun, I have assisted various private sector organizations in litigation against government agencies on issues related to land use and environmental planning, historic building preservation and the First Amendment.

Among other things, I litigated an important zoning case affirmed by the State Supreme Court which helped protect residential neighborhoods from commercial encroachment.

I also stopped a state authority from demolishing a building on the National Register of Historic Places. The Historic Districts Council gave me an award for my efforts.

So, sometimes my work involves weeks of intense scholarly library research. And sometimes my fun involves weeks of camping in the wilderness. Although sometimes I've camped for shorter amounts of time in unconventional settings.

Most recently, in November, 2006, I camped out in a used car lot in Queens, NY as part of an art project.

From Sunday, August 12th through Sunday, August 19th, there's an interesting event happening in the
Allegheny National Forest. It's near Warren, PA, a 350 mile, 6.5 hour schlep from Manhattan. Perhaps you might want to join me. It's a Rainbow Family Gathering.

Activities at a Gathering may range from a workshop on making necklaces from seeds to baking bread in mud ovens to working in a communal kitchen to a botanical tour of edible plants. There's even one camp called Jerusalem Kitchen which preapres kosher meals under rabbinical supervision. At night, people dance around a campfire accompanied by a drum circle. And there are hugs. Lots of hugs. And cuddle puddles, too.

The Rainbow Family's Gatherings have been described as "a reunion in the woods commemorating and attempting to re-create the 1960s with all the love and loving, communing with nature, rejecting authority, accepting substances, and indulging appetites that made up the best and the worst of that era." The Hon. David B. Sentelle, Senior Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Judge Dave & the Rainbow People ("in so far as I know, I am the only federal judge to run a hippie re-union"). Judge Dave was so inspired by his experience that he wrote a book about it, "Judge Dave and the Rainbow People."

Needless to say, as shown by Judge's Dave's example, not everyone who participates in Gatherings is a hippie.

The truth is, Gatherings involve people from all walks of life. For example, Mark Rey, who is currently President Bush's Undersecretary of Agriculture (hippies like to grow things), has attended two Gatherings.

And so has his former roommate, Jeff Kline, who is the president of a major media company chosen by the U.S. Forest Service to communicate its mission to a Hispanic demographic.

I will bring my camping gear to share, which includes a portable shower, a miniature stove, a water purifier and a tent heater - it will be a refreshing mid 50° F to mid 40° F at night.

I am hoping you will enjoy this Gatherings and find some inspiration from it. Like many things in life, it can be as shallow as much it can be profound as you want to make it be.

If this or some other activity might be of interest to you, please e-mail me with your pics. If there's a possibility here, and you are smoke-free and drug free and healthy like I am, I'll be pleased to e-mail you my phone number.

But please don't call too early. I'm just not alert when I have woken up.

For example, one time when I was in college I had this very early morning class. The night before, I stayed up late preparing for my presentation, only to be dismayed that my classmates were snickering at me. When I returned to my dorm, I went to the bathroom, looked in the mirror, and realized that my Queen Helene Anti-Zit Miracle Mud Mask was still on.

 

come pick me up tomorrow. please! asap status. i'm soo done with my life at the moment i just want to pick up and leave. i'm 19, willing to pull my weight and have a couple bucks to throw for gas. help a dude out.