As I was standing in line at the grocery store, a friend I was with started wondering aloud why people would care so much about the endless celebrity drama portrayed on tabloid covers. The gossip industry is a highly competitive and profitable one. Publishers are often willing to pay a photographer tens or even hundreds of thousands to get that one most-desired shot. After giving this some thought, I believe the popularity of tabloids, among many other cultural phenomena, are indirectly connected to the influx of suburban sprawl the United States has seen in recent decades.

Effects of physical community arrangement

Before suburbs became popular with Americans, the three main components of society - residential, commercial, and industrial sectors (thanks for engraining those in my head, SimCity) - were very close together. Sometimes, one could find all three sectors in the same building. But, as societies continued to grow, the urban areas became overcrowded and busy, and as a result, people developed a desire for a blend between rural countryside lifestyles while still maintaining easy access to cities.

The predecessor to today's suburbs were very much literal cabins in the woods, according to architecture author and novelist James Kunstler in his TED talk in 2004. Once these lone homes became popular in the 1950s, vast tracts of them were constructed and created the types of suburbs many of us live in today. While the original idea of a suburb was to live away from the city, while still close enough to it to commute, commercial and industrial sectors began to move into the suburbs to accommodate the rising number of suburban-dwellers. Demand for commercial and especially industrial sectors in urban environments fell dramatically once significant portions of a city's population moved away from the city's center, and the three main societal sectors became segregated.

Suburbs have now furthered the need to commute between locations. Before suburbs, people were naturally brought together in public spaces. When a city's population is able to live, work and play in close quarters, the need to commute is reduced and can even be eliminated. Suburb-dwellers, though, must travel anywhere from ten to thirty minutes to go anywhere significant beside their homes. A tremendous issue of isolation exists for people living in suburbs.

To understand this point further, watch Kunstler's passionate talk from TED 2004 here:

Maintaining culture through communication

Communication is a key component to maintaining a culture. By definition, culture is built around shared meaning and experience. Without communication, culture starts to become frail and ill-maintained. All cultures, from the ancient to the present, have made some attempt to eternalize their beliefs, values, stories, and experiences. Ancients resorted to such expressions of culture as cave paintings, rock carvings, monument construction, etc. Today, our culture is recorded in a plethora of mediums, including books, photographs, and blogs. Arguably, the mediums used today aren't as permanent as those used thousands of years ago, but both sets of cultures recorded themselves just the same.

Radio and television were primary modes of mass communication sixty years ago, while the telephone facilitated peer-to-peer communication. Options for communication are more varied today, and range from texting and picture messaging, to e-mail and social networking. On the most basic level, these forms of communication arose in order to help strengthen cultures. They can't, however, substitute for real-world shared experiences, the basis and inspiration for storytelling in culture. Culture begins to degrade when communication is reduced or eliminated from it, but a larger factor for sustaining culture is maintaining a high level of real-world shared experiences. If people within a certain culture do not have shared experiences, their culture begins to rapidly degenerate. It's no coincidence that suburbs and mass communication took on popularity around the same time period, the 1950s.

Impact of physical community arrangement on culture

An aerial view of housing developments near Markham, Ontario. Photo by IDuke, November 2005.

Because the dissemination of physical communities, and therefore a significant reduction in face-to-face communication, shared experiences have reduced at a rate that directly correlates to the popularity of suburban living. The closer physical arrangement of communities seen in more urban environments naturally brings people together. Face-to-Face communication often occurs without appointments. In suburban lifestyles, in order to accomplish face-to-face communication and have more shared experiences, people often need to take time and resources to move from place to place. Essentially, people are far more isolated from one another today, and face-to-face communication, and shared experiences as a result, are more limited as a result.

Substitutes for true shared experiences were needed when physical communities became more separated by suburbia. Mass media rose out of this need. Storytelling via radio, television, etc. has satisfied, to varying degrees, people's newfound needs for shared experience and storytelling. (Side note: In broadcast announcing, talking to the audience is referred to as "visiting" and carries a familiar tone, as if the announcer was talking with the listener personally.)

Furthermore, the Internet has facilitated shared experience in a duplex, digital context. The use of social networking has exploded because it's a faster form of communicating with more people without having to be in the same physical location. Services exist for virtual meetups, including Second Life. Such methods of attaining virtual shared experiences have been rising exponentially in the last 15 years, and is poised to continue to increase so long as suburbs isolate large portions of the population.

Shared experiences - personal and media-generated

The percentage of shared experienced that are media driven varies from person to person. For some, media makes up a majority of their shared experiences. Many know at least one person who spends much of their time watching television or posting on Facebook in lieu of having real-life experiences with other people. It's these kinds of people tabloids cater to.

More specifically: The higher the percentage of shared experiences had by one person by mass media, the broader and more personal the genres of mass media consumed by that person will be. People who make up, say, 20 percent of their shared experiences with mass media, have a substantial amount of shared experiences coming from real life. These most certainly include personal subjects - what's commonly referred to as "drama." People who make up a larger percentage of their shared experiences from mass media, i.e. 60 percent or more, likely do not personally experience as much "drama" as they would like to, and resort to media outlets for gossip news.

It is at this point the definition of "shared experience" can be interchanged with certain genres of media. Genres like gossip were typically reserved for close personal friends, family etc. in the times before mass media prevalence. When enough people allow a majority of their shared experiences to be media-provided, those once personal topics begin to come into demand, and accessible subjects, celebrities, became targets for this need. The public is aware of celebrities and their works and existence, and because of their notoriety, they have become of interest to people seeking shared experiences in place of their own personal "drama."

Conclusion

In his TED talk in 2004, Kunstler described the typical suburban home as "habitats" that "are producing immense amounts of anxiety and depression in children." Adults aren't the only people accepting these virtual shared experiences. Children are increasingly exposed to mass media, and more and more of their shared experiences are coming from television, cinema, and the Internet. It will be devastating for those children with high levels of media-driven shared experience when they realize there is little special or unique about their culture, and it's all been hand-fed to them instead of experienced by themselves. On the same token, adults must be careful to not let their cultures be drowned out by media. They must make a conscious decision to avoid the suburban lifestyle as much as possible for the sake of preserving their individual cultures. And, for goodness sake, let's not allow celebrity gossip to become our only shared "drama" experience.

Much of the world celebrated Osama bin Laden’s death as a victory. In some ways it was. Al-Qaeda was officially decapitated on that first Monday in May. But the terrorist organization’s battles stretch far beyond suicide bombings, and in other ways, they are the victors.

The U.S. has not won this “War on Terror” yet, and it may actually be heading completely away from victory.

Since its establishment in 1988, Al-Qaeda has worked toward removing Christian and Jewish presences in Islamic nations. Its primary means of accomplishing this is through violent acts of terrorism designed to instill fear in the general population. Its armed forces, which could be as few as hundreds or as large as thousands, aren’t affiliated with any state, and operatives are located across multiple nations in the middle east.

Al-Qaeda, and thusly Osama bin Laden, took the international spotlight and provoked the United States with the September 11, 2001 attacks – events of a caliber the U.S. hadn’t seen since Pearl Harbor. Shortly after the attacks, President George W. Bush declared a “War on Terror,” and deployed military to Afghanistan to seek Osama bin Laden and any Al-Qaeda members responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

This is exactly what Al-Qaeda wanted.

About four years after the September 11 attacks, Al-Quds Al Arabi, a London-based, independent Arab newspaper, published excerpts from a document titled “Al-Qaeda’s Strategy to the Year 2020”. Among those excerpts was a simple, five step plan to defeat the United States by spreading its resources thin. While many may believe the U.S. is currently winning the “War on Terror,” the portion of Al-Qaeda’s plan the country’s actions fulfill suggests otherwise.

Step one: Provoke the United States into invading a Muslim country.

This step has been over a decade in the making. United States armed forces still occupy Afghanistan and Iraq, and it’s still uncertain how much involvement the U.S. will ultimately take in Libya.

It is clear that when the topic of pulling out of the middle east is brought up, even under the Obama administration, it’s all talk and no game. One of Obama’s primary campaign promises was a timely withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. (President Obama announced an exit date for Iraq in 2009: December 31, 2011.) The fact that forces are still touring in both countries doesn’t only cost the U.S. money, it costs lives. More on that later, in step five.

Step two: Incite local resistance to occupying forces.

Despite the Bush administration’s ascertainment that Afghan and Iraqi citizens welcomed the United States’ presence, not everyone in those nations was happy about the occupation. One of the major reasons for Afghan opposition is the high numbers of civilian casualties which has risen in recent years. According to the UN’s annual report on the civilian death toll in Afghanistan, 2,777 civilians were killed in 2010. Al Jazerra notes that this number is a 15 percent increase from 2009 and akin to numbers last seen at the start of the war.

In Iraq, local opposition was strongest in 2008 when the U.S. proposed a security pact to extend the occupation for three years. The New York Times reported that many Iraqis viewed the “prospects of a long-term American troop presence as demeaning and humiliating.” Obviously, not all citizens of Iraq or Afghanistan are welcoming to U.S. military.

Step three: Expand the conflict to neighboring countries, and engage the U.S. in a long war of attrition.

In 2001, the United States began the war in Afghanistan. In 2003, the first troops were deployed in Iraq. Since the beginning of those two wars, talks of additional infiltrations and interventions have hit the table, including Iran. The U.S. has already begun to interject in the Libyan civil war sparked by anti-government protests. While the objectives of each of these wars don’t all relate directly to Al-Qaeda, they still qualify as expanding conflict to neighboring countries. The United States’ confrontations in the middle east have lasted longer than the Vietnam War, also qualifying the second clause in this step of Al-Qaeda’s plan.

Step four: Convert Al-Qaeda into an ideology.

This step in Al-Qaeda’s plan for the year 2020 has yet to be achieved, but it remains a realistic goal. In March of 2010, the Washington Times reported that, while remaining small, Al-Qaeda’s network in North Africa has shown some growth.

The terror organization’s main ideology to eradicate those condemned by Islam (namely Judeo-Christians) seems to still be resonating, though still on a small scale. While unlikely, it isn’t impossible that Al-Qaeda may still grow to a size that could be considered an embraceable ideology.

Step five: U.S. economy collapse.

National debt for the United States continues to climb to all-time highs. As of this writing, the national debt is approximately $14.3 trillion. The U.S. has been in its current economic trench, the Late 2000s recession, for the last three to four years with little end in sight. The wars in the middle east have certainly not helped this debt. Monetary cost for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have totaled over an estimated $1 trillion, and the wars aren’t over yet.

Such exorbitant military spending, along with bailouts of major American corporations and banks have both played a significant role in increasing the national debt. Add an additional $2.4 trillion in personal debt, according to the Federal Reserve, and it’s evident that the economy is not in its best place, and its future is highly unclear.

Aside from the financial cost, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost the lives of thousands of soldiers and civilians. In 2010, the Washington Post reported the total death toll of U.S. military alone to be over 1,000 in Afghanistan and 4,366 in Iraq. This doesn’t include other military and civilians, which adds thousands more to the count.

It’s an unfortunate fact that a simple majority of these steps have been executed successfully. Whether or not a mass number of people will embrace Al-Qaeda as an “ideology” has yet to be seen. But based on the plan outlined in 2005, it appears as if the United States is headed directly for the fifth and final step of Al-Qaeda’s plan for success.

And, at that point, Osama bin Laden’s death will mean nothing.

It all comes down to the fact that the United States is spreading itself too thin and doesn’t set its priorities correctly. In one recent example, congress debated cutting funding for public broadcasting while maintaining a military budget that has cost the U.S. over $1 trillion over the last decade.

The Perpetuity of Terrorism, the United States

As previously mentioned, Al-Qaeda has been continuing to grow, though at a slow pace, even while the U.S. has been fighting a war on terror for almost a decade. Although Osama bin Laden has been removed from the top of the organization, another leader will likely arise. The Christian Science Monitor reported one week after the announcement of bin Laden’s death that Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s chief strategist, is the most likely Al-Qaeda leader to take bin Laden’s place. So, while Al-Qaeda’s head may have been chopped off, it could just as soon grow back.

Other terrorist organizations exist beyond Al-Qaeda. Of course, not all of them have an axe to grind with the United States, but if Al-Qaeda were to fall completely, the world would not be free of terror.

The death of Osama bin Laden comes with a reminder that the United States has sacrificed many of its military men and women and contributed to the economic downfall it has seen in recent years all to dethrone a man who has been in hiding for years and will simply be replaced. And some of the costliest issues related to the United States’ priorities are not apparent in the death toll or debt figures.

For example: Nearly one in ten American citizens are without a job today, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and roughly 17.4 million households in the U.S. face food shortages, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. These two important issues, among many others, remain hardly addressed when compared to the amount of attention given to wars abroad. And while there is no direct correlation between the wars and these domestic issues, the level of spending the federal government is willing to dedicate to the war vastly overshadows that for social issues at home.

Osama bin Laden is dead, but it has hardly meant victory for the United States. The retaliation to the September 11 attacks has contributed to a lack of domestic support for Americans, and while Al-Qaeda’s leader is dead, the extreme costs of war, both financial and human, are exactly what he wanted all along. Bin Laden’s death is not an end to terrorism - the real event worth celebrating.

This is something I spent the first 18 years of my life without.

I'm about to graduate from Northern Arizona University. My parents and American society in general told me that I needed a degree to get a good job. That's probably true, but what I've gained the most from this college experience is not an education. It's social conditioning.

Social nuances between my domestic upbringing, such as sharing a bedroom with another person, community bathrooms, and having to cook for myself, seemed a bit daunting when I first entered the undergraduate scene. Since then, like most, I've come to like these facts of living, and I recognize that they actually have helped me develop into a better person.

Today marks the start of Spring Break. Normally I would be with my family, but this year, I've had to dedicate the first half of the week-off to various production and broadcast engineering projects. My roommates have left, my girlfriend has left, and my good friends have left. Campus is virtually empty, and I'm basically alone.

What I've discovered is that cooking for one is boring. When I'm done with a long but good day of work, I don't have anyone to talk to about it when I get home. Likewise, no one is around to tell me the stories of their day. This is utterly, and completely, boring.

I don't know how I lived like this before. My typical routine before college would be to go to school, go to work, then go home and dabble online for the rest of each evening - maybe chat online with a couple of friends. What was I doing with my social life back then? Obviously, not enough.

foreveralone.jpg, courtesy of the Internet.

For the remainder of my life, be it through friends, roommates, or a wife, I genuinely hope to never be alone.

Kurt Vonnegut once said, "I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different." I just want to make sure my farting around is around other people.

Preface: This was written for The Lumberjack newspaper and NorthernArizonaNews.com as a staff editorial. As such, it's written in such a way that it represents the opinion of the paper and not me as an individual. The included image was not published as part of this editorial.

Technological flotsam.

Vance White's eyes. Somewhat related. (One of the few photos I have access to since my computer is out of service.)

What should we hold dear? Some things? Everything? Nothing? Most people won't live to see the age of 100. Material possessions come and go for a myriad of reasons. And the Earth? Check back in 5 billion years.

Moments like the one this girl experienced, and I witnessed, re-shock us into remembering that everything is temporary. One lesser tragedy that hit closer to home was the crashing of my laptop's hard drive. That shook me into realizing that pretty much my whole life, almost every hobby and job I take on, is dependent on that computer. Life is now less convenient, more difficult, and overall slower while it's awaiting repair.

I called my 84 year old grandma to say hi after that girl lost her dad. I also started thinking about what other dependencies people have in life, and how they can positively and negatively affect our day-to-day experiences. Family is the first one that came to mind. They are traditionally the foundation for people's entire lives, providing an upbringing, culture, and community for children as they grow. Another would be friends, which provide support structures and experiences. Then there's acquaintances, co-workers, etc. People live for social relationships, so, for the most part, having relationships to people is a positive.

The despair that we feel when we lose someone close is there because we're virtually losing a part of ourselves when they go away.

My computer is something that has become a part of me because of what I do. (Though, I'd never agree to have a machine *physically* become a part of me.) That girl's father was a part of her, probably a major one at that. Is there any way to protect against losing the people, things, and other nouns that make up the bulk of your livelihood? (After all, people can't be backed up to disk.)

The answer is probably: Be yourself. I accept that my friends have had a hand in making me who I am over the years and that my parents have had a tremendous impact on things like my work ethic and general persistence. But the main part of who I am hasn't been defined by outside influences. It's been crafted and honed by me. Original content, if you will. Without investing time in developing a unique persona, you will fall back on depending too much on other people for who you are as an individual.

So, take time to develop who you are before fate catches up to you. Everyone, and everything, will eventually disappear from your life. Sometimes they'll be replaced, for better or worse; sometimes they won't. The best way to prevent losing a a part of your life is dedicating less of your life to people and things outside of the being you make yourself.

"You won't last six months in this town." - Anonymous

If you're sensible, you take an indirect hint from the broke fuckers who spend half their lives wasting away at the blackjack table, pounding back cigarette after drink after sorrow.

"It's always like this," The stranger across the table from me says after yet another losing hand.

I was in the same boat as him, walking away from the cards with 2/3 fewer chips than I started with. Thankfully, the $60 I used to bet with all came from video poker winnings from earlier. No matter what, I told myself, I'm leaving here $20 up.

Greed got the best of me that night. Though ending the night with a profit, it was much less than it could have been. After hitting two four of a kinds on video poker, I had turned my initial $40 into $150 for $110 profit. Half an hour and two more free beers, and that dropped to $60 profit, and I cashed out. It was 4 a.m., and this is when I tried to sleep and couldn't. So I tried my luck at blackjack at 6 in the morning. On a Sunday. Though I lost winnings, I convinced the pit boss to comp me breakfast.

There are two ways to look at this situation I put myself in. Either I could have won more, got greedy and lost, or I simply won $20, free food and drinks, and a night out. All of this seems to relate back to a concept I recently read about called the anchoring effect.

You've undoubtedly experienced the anchoring effect, where your perceived value of something is set by an "anchor" value, then negotiated otherwise. This is why department stores have sales every damn day of the year: All of their "regular" prices are set unrealistically high then put "on sale" to give the appearance that it's a good deal.

But that's not the only situation the anchoring effect is found in. From the blog by David McRaney on "You Are Not So Smart:"

Is the population of Venezuela greater or fewer than 65 million?

Go ahead and guess.

Ok, another question, how many people do you think live Venezuela? [...]

In 1974, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman conducted a study asking a similar question.

They asked people to estimate how many African countries were part of the United Nations, but first they spun a wheel of fortune.

The wheel was painted with numbers from 0 to 100, but rigged to always land on 10 or 65. When the arrow stopped spinning, they asked the person in the experiment to say if they believed the percentage of countries was higher or lower than the number on the wheel.

They then asked people to estimate what they thought the actual percentage of nations was.

They found people who landed on 10 in the first half of the experiment guessed around 25 percent of Africa was part of the U.N. Those who landed on 65 said around 45 percent.

They had been locked in place by the anchoring effect.

The trick here is no one really knew what the answer was. They had to guess, yet it didn’t feel like a guess. As far as they knew, the wheel was a random number generator, but it produced something concrete to work from.

When they adjusted their estimates, they couldn’t avoid the anchor.

The populations of South American countries probably aren’t numbers you have memorized. You need some sort of cue, a point of reference.

You searched your mental assets for something of value concerning Venezuela – the flag, the language, Hugo Chavez – but the population figures aren’t in your head.

What is in your head is the figure I gave you, 65 million, and it’s right there up front influencing how you answer the second question. When you have nothing else to go on, you fixate on the information at hand.

Anchoring happens more often than we realize. So, in the example of my gambling situation, I have to consider what my anchor is, and in some cases like this one, consciously set it myself. Is my anchor, "I have more than I started with," or "I have less profit than I could have had."? One makes me slightly happy, the other makes me slightly depressed. Which anchor do you think I chose to stick with?

(Click to enlarge. Image source: Unknown)

I believe the anchoring effect can even reach beyond numbers. Ask yourself these questions: Are you happy with who you are? Why? Is there anything about your life that you want to change?

If you are ever unhappy or doubt your self-worth, consider what you're basing that opinion on. I believe people should be wary of the social anchors they expose themselves to. Societal "norms" aren't always normal. Remember that. Identify what you (and only you) want to get out of your life and set those as your anchors.

Besides, an anchor should never be above you. If it is, it's only going to crush you. (Gravity can be a bitch.)

Consider something motivational and uplifting, like the image on the right.

This is motivating simply because it helps to lower your social anchor, your expectations of life and yourself, if not just for a minute. It's unrealistic to directly compare yourself to someone living in a completely different reality, but to take a step away from your reality for a change of perspective - that's worthwhile in helping you feel better about who you are.

So, in brief, try to set your own standards/anchors to be happier with yourself. And don't get too greedy when gambling; quit while you're ahead!

BT, and his vocal accompaniment JES, performed at Rain Nightclub at the Palms Resort and Casino Saturday night, and it was a hell of a show.

You're gonna have to trust me - this is BT.

Granted, this was my first nightclub experience, so it might as well have been all the same as any other club. But what made this particular venue attractive on this particular night was the man himself, BT.

A crooked hallway plastered in tiny mirrors beings me in to the club. The place is pounding with music. And people.

You have to shove past everyone in a club like this, but they're all attractive, so I guess it doesn't matter. Shoving past people for five minutes got me to a relatively uncrowded bar.

"What's strong and cheap?" I asked the bartender after observing a guy pay $7 for a cheap beer. He gave me a double rum and coke for $13.

Waiting for the first DJ to finish, I stood on the upper balcony next to people I couldn't hear. I watched as security guards ushered people, cleaned up drinks, etc. The dance floor was packed, and there was no telling where I'd end up if I tried to enter it. Best keep my distance.

Fanboy-ism Takes Hold, Pays Off

View from the balcony at RAIN nightclub at the Palms as strobe lights go off.

That cautionary distance broke when BT took the helm. I wandered toward the stage with my sweating drink. Soon they were passing out CDs, and I grabbed one - a super EP of "Every Other Way" with exclusive remixes. The one song BT played with words ("Break My Fall," Tiesto/BT) I sang along to, along with many others. For a moment, I felt slightly popular.

A few more songs, and BT was off the stage. It was a relatively short set, and it was even met with over a minute of silence because of a power issue. Embarrassing, but it happens. According to an anonymous (but reliable) source, the cause of the issue was a disconnected then subsequently overloaded circuit. BT stepped off-stage for a while, something this source says they've never seen happen in a club before.

JES came out to sing "Every Other Way" after BT was done spinning, and afterward, she sang "The Light in Things," another of my favorites from BT's newest album, "These Hopeful Machines."

At this point, I'd been at the foot of the stage for over an hour. I naturally sang along to "The Light in Things," and as I did, JES looked my way while singing and seemed surprised that someone in the crowd was singing along. She smiled and sang a verse or two while our eyes were locked.

Overall, an electric night, mostly worth the cost for seeing BT perform live. It was bit more exciting than the rave I went to in Phoenix a couple of weeks ago.

Grab Your Glowsticks

The raver crowd isn't one to be compared. Most of these teenagers and twenty-somethings aren't exactly 21 (or don't have a fake ID) so they dress up in lingerie and glowsticks to go to these pseudo-regulated parties in the middle of industrial Phoenix, a city well-known for its massive rave scene.

Several raves happen in "secret" locations in The Valley virtually every weekend. I happened to choose the most well-attended summer rave in town to go to: "MaryXMas in July."

To figure out where the party is, you have to sift through comments on Don'tStayIn.com, a website dedicated to electronic-music-based
parties and raves worldwide. In a comment will be a phone number. If you call the phone number a few times, it'll play a pre-recorded message with directions. That was easy. It makes you wonder how secret the location really is.

Not very, as the first people I saw when arriving were cops.

DJ "Teddy Graham" on the hardcore stage at "MaryXMas in July." (Picture credit: Unknown)

The warehouse looked too small to be holding three stages and oodles of people, but you could tell it was the place - Pounding baselines could be heard blocks away.

I stood in line for about 20 minutes before emptying my pockets and being patted down by security. I was pushed through and paid my $20 admission to a company/organization that was announced to no one. It was a pure mystery who hosted this party. No signs on the front of the warehouse, nothing.

It was definitely a warehouse. A gutted warehouse with lots of ravers and loud music inside. The three stages weren't well separated, so the beats often mixed terribly with each other. One stage was for commercial hip-hop, house, and comparatively slower-paced dance music. Another was for hardcore techno and fidget house. The smallest stage was for what sounded like dub-step.

Outside of the warehouse was another crowd, half of which was smoking. They smoked all night. I found a pack of cigarettes on the ground and tried to sell them for money. I only made 35 cents.

It seemed many of the people at this party were underage, broke freeloaders who loved to wear next-to-nothing and do drugs while massaging each other.

Oh, drugs. That's what the cops were for. Occasionally, three cops with bullet-proof vests would meander through the crowd outside and take someone away in handcuffs, presumably for selling pills. The going rate for a pill of ecstasy was $10. Why couldn't anyone give me a quarter for a smoke?

The rave got boring quickly, but it had its perks. One of the hardcore DJs dressed up in a bear costume and called himself "Teddy Graham" and played some decent tracks. The people who were doing E (or X) were slouched up against any and all walls to receive "light shows" from other ravers who had special gloves with flashing lights on their fingertips. With their dumbfounded faces glowing as the lights flew toward and away from their faces, they was amusing to watch.

What I couldn't understand is how anyone could enjoy dancing for 6 hours straight, even on drugs. On the hardcore stage, shirtless guys and nearly-topless girls danced on stage the whole night. Especially in an under-cooled Phoenix warehouse, this seemed insane. (It makes sense that the people who go to the ER while on ecstasy do so because they're dehydrated.)

The Bottom Line

If you're deciding on experiencing night life, the question is how much you're willing to spend and what kind of music you enjoy dancing to.

If you enjoy alcohol, house/hip-hop, or class, go to a nightclub. Expect to spend at least $50 and be ID'd if you look under 21.

If you enjoy ecstasy, hardcore/techno/electrohouse, or the geeky anime/gamer crowd, go to a rave. Expect to spend $10-20 on admission and $3-6 on water. Plus extras, if you do that sort of thing. There's no strict age requirement.

Both kinds of parties are perfectly legal. What happens at one of them is questionable yet managed by the police. Either way, I think I'm done with nightlife for a while, unless someone can merge the affordability of a rave with the quality of a nightclub.

Related Links

BT

JES

Rain Nightclub

Don't Stay In

Today, driven to the Sea by low prices and a slumping economy, some have built small trailer homes on land that was supposed to be reserved for pristine vacation houses. The poor condition of the sea water has led to an environmental downfall, which makes the desire to live in such an area questionable.

Several times I read about Salton City, Calif. online and wanted to take a visit. Recently, I was able to. The sights and smells were incredible and disgusting: paltry life and a wasted environment. The sand isn't made of rocks. It's made of weathered and broken-down fish skeletons. This environmental damage has been reoccurring for decades.

Below are some pictures from the trip. It made me wonder what would happen to our world if corporations defined what life-ventures were profitable or not. It seems that a community founded entirely by a corporation is almost always destined for failure and downfall.

Sources and further reading:

Rudyland Blog - Salton Sea: What Went Wrong?

Salton City - Wikipedia

"Plagues & Pleasures" - Salton Sea Documentary

A rollover accident on the I-15 on the way to California. This was before first responders arrived, and there were people on top of the car trying to get people out of the overturned car.

An art gallery in Newport Beach, an extremely college-style town, at least by the beac. I loved the name of this particular

People seem to act like Pita Pit is a Flagstaff specialty, but there was a Pita Pit in Newport Beach, CA. I've noticed that many of Flagstaff's "local" restaurants also have other locations.

Fresh plums at the Brea, CA downtown farmer's market.

Orange County, CA has a lot of independent burger joints, which is pretty refreshing from the usual fast food. PK's is a favorite of my dad's, and it's operated by an old Asian man who makes a joke out of every sentence you say. Also, to get sodas, he welcomes you behind the serving counter to the fountain. Awesome.

Outside of PK's Burger. There was no phone at this post, but it was fun to see the outdated AT&T sign.

Offered for free inside of PK's, this is a CD with a message from a presumably Viatnamese church. It was one of those cheap CDs that can be seen through when held up to the light. Kind of like sinners, I guess.

The family dog, Rascal, in the car and on the way to a public concert. This dog hates me, so I hate it. Except for its cuteness.

A gold shrine built in the San Juan Capastrano Mission. Quite intricate, and well worth a visit.

Oh, the I-5. One of the staples of California, along with lens flare.

On a sidewalk across the street from the largest bathroom in San Juan Capastrano, CA. Possibly written in blood?

I'd like to see a more pretentious marketing scheme.

Yet another independent burger joint. I didn't have a chance to visit this one, but the sign alone makes me salivate.

(Possibly) more to come after I return from Phoenix. After college, I'm going to miss summer.