About Me

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I started out as a small child. Eventually I grew, all the while experiencing things. Lucky for me I experienced some stuff that led me to seek more experiences, which ultimately resulted in a wider perspective than I had previously attained. The wider my perspective gets, the less I have to worry about falling off the edge of it. So far it's working out pretty well, so I think I'll keep it up for a while.

Monday, August 1, 2011

on the road again: "the homeless problem", and why you should pick up hitchhikers*Be aware of RANT*

We're up in Bellingham Washington, about 20 miles south of the canadian border. We left California over a month ago to go to the rainbow gathering in southern washington. It took about 3 days to get up there. We stopped in Ashland Oregon and Grant's Pass where we spent the night with a cool rainbow mama who gave us a ride all the way up to the gathering the next day.

Rainbow really started as soon as we got into Oregon on the 5. There were tons of kids hitchhiking on the freeway, which is totally legal there.

After the gathering we headed to portland to get back on the five where we hooked up with our newest traveling companion, Ashleigh who convinced us to go north instead of south and brought us here to bellingham. She's also a great singer and I'm eventually going to get her music up on here.

We hung out in portland for about a week, the first three days of which we found it nearly impossible to get any sleep due to the bike cops who come and wake you up all the time. Bike cops are my least favorite type of cop, despite the fact that everyone assures me they all smoke weed. Seriously I've never met a bike cop who wasn't a total douchebag. Since they aren't allowed to carry guns, or drive a patrol car, I must conclude that they are the most imcompetent, hot headed and newbie cops that don't even have respect from the cop community and aren't trusted not to shoot or run over people. These are the guys who enforce all the stupid insulting bullshit laws that don't really matter and shouldn't even exist. Like no sleeping in the park. Let me elaborate on the no sleeping in the park rule. It's not technically illegal to fall asleep while relaxing in the park or sunbathing or whatever, but since they don't want bums to sleep there, you're not allowed to have a blanket. you can sleep, but no being warm. Now since people like to take blankets to the park to sit on the grass, your allowed to have a blanket as long as you don't fall asleep on it. So if you have a blanket and fall asleep, it's a ticket. This law is totally designed to keep bums from sleeping in the park during the day, so you probably don't have to worry about it if you have a job and look clean, (although I did hear of a family that got a ticket while they were having a picnic) but if your homeless you're going to get a ticket. How many bums do you know that pay sleeping in the park tickets? Zero, that's how many! What is the sense in this? So apparently you're supposed to sleep in doorways, where the cops wake you up early in the morning instead. Only problem with that is that the best time to busk is around 11-3am, so you have to choose between making money and getting to sleep.

There's a couple of other laws targeted specifically at fixing the "homeless problem" that I have encountered in major cities, like the one that prohibits selling single beers and 40s in downtown areas. So if bums want to get wasted they have to make enough cash for a 6 pack or a bottle of liquor. That totally makes sense right? Make the alcoholics buy larger amonts of alcohol at a time, that'll stop them from drinking! Laws about drinking in public are intrinsically flawed when dealing with people who don't have any private property to drink on. Give that guy with a beer in his jacket another ticket, that'll keep him from drinking in public next time he still doens't have anywhere else to go!

Why can't all these cops go do something that matters? I had a very rude bike cop in portland tell me and my friends when we were trying to warm up under a blanket on a bench on a cloudy windy day that we couldn't sleep there. When we asked her where we were allowed to sleep, she told us we couldn't sleep in downtown because normal people were going to work this time of day. I think that's the crux of the biscuit right there. These laws are total bullshit to try to force everyone to be a certain type of person, to have a certain type of government sanctioned consumer driven environmentally unsustainable lifestyle.

A lot of people all over the world lived as nomads for a long time, tending livestock and following seasonal abundance from one place to the next. What's the biggest difference between them and the "normal" people in america today? Well, they can't own a bunch of useless shit because they have to carry it around. Which makes them shitty consumers.

Everyone wants land so they can do what they want and be the boss of the little area they own. So the landlord the governement or whatever authority figure won't be able to tell them what to do on their land. So they put up fences and they don't let anyone in. Private property is everywhere. What are the people supposed to do who don't have land? Rent it. Doesn't it offend anyone else that you have to pay just to be somewhere? It's not just at home, you'll find it in public too. Don't hang out around a truck stop too long or they'll politely ask you to leave for loitering. I've been kicked out of starbucks before because I sat down inside to drink the coffee I just purchased.  They make up some bullshit reason like the "really strict no loitering policy" that every store claims to have on the books, but never gets enforced unless you look dirty. If you ask a normal person they'll say something like "that's just how life is, it's hard and you have to jump through hoops for the man in order to stay alive." If you contradict them, they'll get really offended and really self righteous, but you can tell it's just because you're threatening the worldview that they alreadly sacraficed their own right to happiness for.
Do you honestly believe that you should have to pay to be where you are, at all times?
You should have to pay to sleep?
You should have to pay to be able to grow your own food?

When I was a kid in elementary school, my teacher taught me that you need five things to live: air, food, water, shelter, and space. They only thing on that list that people generally agree that everyone has a right to get for free is air. So four out of five conditions for your life require dollars.

Do you really think people need money to stay alive? Since when is the government's job to be the "eveyone should be working at all times"police? When did the american dream become "I wanna get shitloads of money so I can have tons of cool stuff.

Do you really think you need all that crap? What do you think people did before most of the entertainment that people spend so much of their time consuming was invented? You think everyone who lived life a hundred years ago had boring depraved lives because they didn't get to spend a few hours a day watching tv? No, instead they spent time talking to each other. Humans are social creatures, like everyone always says, but no one has time for each other anymore. everyone's living on the clock, working 8 hours a day 5 or 6 days a week, getting home to tired to spend time doing anything but vegging out. And all for the money to either buy new shit or just pay the rent if your in the low paying job bracket.

Those of us in the know remember the american dream had something to do with freedom to make your own way in the world, to do meaningful work to provide yourself and your family with the things they need and to be able to practice your own beliefs in such a way as to live a life that makes sense to you. Now so many people subscribe to the view that life is hard and shitty and pointless. Too many of them think that someone seeking happiness or understanding of their life are just indulging in cloudy minded idealism, but is it really so idealistic to want to spend more time doing the things that actually fulfill your spirit rather than chasing your tail for rent month after month?

How long can you let the concept of normal being shoved down you throat everyday rule your life?

If you think that all bums are lazy alcoholics who don't want a job, dirty hippies who can't face reality or poor families that can't afford homes, you'd probably be suprised to find, after talking to a variety of homeless people, that the thing that unites the homeless isn't the inability to live a "normal" life, but actually the unwillingness to sacrafice the greater portion of their lives to a machine that doesn't work and  no one likes. These are the same people who realize that we only get one life, and if you don't live yours you lost the game. We are the non-conformists, the ones who were so repelled by the system, that we would rather shit and piss outside, sleep in the rain, get kicked out of places, yelled at from moving vehicles, ridiculed, hated by people who don't admit to themselves why. We know our time is not worth any amount of this imaginary dust personified by paper, the extra substance in between you and and what you need, that the government uses to control the populace. 

Oh yeah, and our carbon footprint is smaller than yours. You may view bums as parasites on society, but when you think about it, we eat your leftovers, we recycle your garbage, we live off the spare change you realize you don't really need. Most of us don't drive, and the ones that do tend to carpool. (You'd be surprised at how many people you can actually fit into a four-seater, let alone the big old vans that rubber-trampers tend to mob around in.

By the way, picking up hitchhikers is environmentally friendly and despite hollywood's popular portrayls, the vast majority of hitchhikers just really need a ride somwhere, and aren't actually interested in killing you. I mean, come the fuck on! How wrapped up are you in your awesome little self that you actually think the dirty sweaty guy out there in the 103 degree heat on the side of the freeway actually just wants to randomly kill you. News flash, the hitchhiker is actually a lot more likely to get picked up by a freak or a rapist than to actually be one. Also, there's a lot easier ways to get ahold of someone to murder or rape than by having them pick you up hitchhiking. You think a rapist is going to stand around on the side of a freeway all day in the heat or rain with his thumb out instead of just going to a bar and finding some naive drunk chick? No way. Gimme a break and be honest with yourself, you don't really think you're going to get murdered by a hitchhiker, so what's the real reason you don't pick us up? Is it the smell? Is it that you're afraid the conversation will be awkward, that we have nothing in common? Maybe your car will be crowded? All that gas you waste driving your giant SUV around by yourself would be much better spent taking me and my friends somewhere. You got to admit, the slight discomfort you may have to endure is nothing compared to the great favor you would be doing getting us out of that abandoned hell-hole of an on-ramp. Karma comes back around, as you may already have noticed and if you dare to perform a random act of kindness, you might be suprised to find out that we're really fucking cool. Probably cooler than most of your friends.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

The varieties of FLAVOR

To begin with, the distinction between plant and fungus wasn't firmly established or recognized in the world of biology until some time in the 1960s. Botanists must have been relieved that they would no longer have to share space at botanical conventions with mushroom weirdos with the announcement of a 3rd kingdom of life (with two more being discovered/differentiated later). This is perfectly acceptable because I think botanists should not have to describe things that exhale CO2 and inhale O2. It must have been terribly confusing dealing with these enzymatically and ecologically inverse plants that don't look like any other type of plant and only share non-photosynthesis with a minority of other very not-mushroomy plants. And now, mushroom people have our very own science, MYCOLOGY, the study of fungi.

One of the things that continues to motivate me to seek out different types of mushrooms, besides the obvious things that cause anyone to seek out new experiences, is the extreme variety of flavor one may experience. Flavor is not really the most obvious motivator, even to the hungry, experimental, or the fond-of-mushrooms-you-buy-at-the-store. It actually never occurred to me until I first decided to step out of the cultural superstitions and fears surrounding mushrooms and the feeling of fearing for my life that so many people take advantage of in order to promote a cultural belief, that I tasted a morel I had found and which my companion had helped me identify. I realized that even though I could detect a slight analogousness between the morel flavor and the well-known Agaricus Bisporus flavor, the flavor of the morel was actually more similar to something like steak (yes, cow meat). And once the initial flavor assumption I had going into the kingdom of fungi was overturned by the evidence presented by the morel, infinity sprang up before me. There is an infinite spectrum of flavor possible with the kingdom of the fungus, just as there is with herbs/veggies/fruits/grains (plants) and with ruminants/omnivores/avians/mammals/reptiles (animals). There is equally a third set of possibilities and I love cooking.

If you have not hunted wild mushrooms then you have probably still experienced a diverse range of flavors from the fungi. Bread comes to mind - the yeast really doesn't get to ferment the flour for very long, but you can't deny the difference in flavor between a sourdough bread and an unleavened bread such as a tortilla. Yeast is a fungus, yeast is the only major difference between different types of bread, and they all taste pretty different from one another. So a fungus is what's causing your favorite bread to be your favorite bread, unless there's some other reason you love it such as its being full of cranberries or something. Soy sauce tastes wildly different from tofu, yet they are both made of the same thing: soy. Difference? The fermentation process using yeast yields soy sauce. Beer and wine are other obvious fermentation products. More obvious still are the flavors of Brie (I always eat the rind, that's where the flavor's concentrated at!) and various Bleu cheeses. These cheeses derive their simultaneously delicate and extremely powerful flavors from delicious species of mold. The penicillium species that dwells in a cave in Stilton, UK has a particularly awesome flavor, as does penicillium roquefortii.

Popular edible mushrooms all have fairly different flavors from one another, though there is an underlying flavor that seems unique to the fungus kingdom and appears in every different fungus I have tasted to some degree or other, with the notable exceptions being the moldy cheeses. This is probably the flavor of chitin, the fundamental material which all fungi are made of (in plants this is cellulose).

Some popular edibles with unique flavors include of course the morel (Morchella spp) with a distinctive savory (Umami) flavor which definitely makes me think of "little steaks growing from the ground", the chanterelle (Cantharellus and Craterellus spp with some others included sometimes due to superficial resemblance) whose flavors within the group are fairly different, with the yellow chanterelles being fruity (it takes quite a lot of them in your mouth at once before you taste any mushroominess), the red variety being more floral and spicy, the black trumpets being more similar to morels but tasting somewhat like a combination of morel and yellow chanterelle, and other varieties I've not found yet probably tasting different; curiously there exists a type of tooth fungus (with the spatially opposite design of the polypore or bolete, that being stalactites of spore-producing flesh in the place of gills) called a Hedgehog Mushroom which appears to have some very close evolutionary ties to the yellow chanterelle, as the color is identical (not hard to imagine the same chemical compound might be responsible for the yellow color of both), and the flavor is practically identical, though much more concentrated in the hedgehog than in the yellow chanterelle leading me to believe that the same chemical compound (or complex of compounds) is likely responsible for the flavor of both, especially considering the numerous substantial similarities.

Most varieties of the yellow chanterelle seem to me (personal opinion) to be improvements on the original design. The white chanterelle has a similar appearance only it seems to have diverted its energy from making yellow pigment into making stronger flavor. The yellow trumpet has the appearance of chanterelle in color and the structure of a black trumpet only sometimes it's filled in (making a solid vase) and sometimes it's not (making a hollow trumpet), and it pretty much tastes like a yellow chanterelle with bits of black trumpet in it. The bog chanterelles (yellow and tiny with more of a long-skinny stalk) are the only member of the chanterelle family I enjoy less than the yellow chanterelle that characterizes the family. Also, even though it's not really all the way a chanterelle per se, the yellow hedgehog mushroom (mentioned above) is probably the best of the mushrooms that have the exact same pigment and flavor as the yellow chanterelle, as it is much more concentrated and the texture is more firm, almost crunchy. There's my $0.02 on the matter.

Boletus Edulis, the King Bolete, has something similar going on with there being clearly a set of compounds responsible for the flavor that each fruiting body is only allowed so much of throughout its life, as the smaller/less mature ones seem to have much more concentrated flavor than the larger/more mature ones, and this flavor is definitely something to remember and to develop skills looking in shrumps and identifying mushrooms just to be able to continue to occasionally experience. It is another extremely savory mushroom. The extraneous but healthy pieces of King Bolete you inevitably generate in preparing one for a meal (or several, on a good day) can be used to create a broth that tastes somewhere between chicken and beef broth.

Oyster mushrooms (pleurotus spp) are a unique form, in that the very recognizable gill information matrix appears without stalk and growing from dead trees. This was the first type of mushroom I positively identified myself without anyone else telling me what it was or how to identify it, so really I could say it was the first mushroom I learned, although I fairly well understood the morel after my companion-for-life identified the ones I had found earlier the same year. The flavor is definitely somewhere between mushroom and white-fleshed fish of some sort. The flavors found in the Agaricus genus are actually a surprising trend. More frequently than you find flavors akin to the grocery store mushroom AKA the portabella button, you find almond flavored mushrooms. And it is indeed the same chemical that occurs in the highest concentration in almond oil, benzaldehyde, which is responsible for the flavor of the "almond mushrooms" such as Agaricus Subrufescens (almond mushroom), Agaricus Arvensis (horse mushroom), and Agaricus Augustus (the prince). There are probably other chemicals in these mushrooms responsible for their unique flavor, but that is one I specifically know about, and definitely is responsible at least for the almond aspect of their flavor.

Also something I am able to cross-reference between plants, chemistry, and fungi, are the Candy Cap, Lactarius Fragilis. Fenugreek, maple syrup, tobacco, and various candy caps (there are 3 species of lactarius with this compound in them) all contain Sotolon, a flavor molecule which has different aromas in different concentrations (that of maple syrup or caramel at low concentrations, and that of fenugreek/curry/spicy at high concentrations). There has been no specific scientific study that shows the presence of sotolon in L.fragilis, however these aroma characteristics are consistent - the fresh mushroom smells spicy while the dried mushroom smells like maple syrup. Also the characteristic of sotolon to pass through the body unchanged, leading to maple-syrup-scented sweat glands (armpits mostly) is a well known response to eating lots of fenugreek and it is also a well known response to eating lots of candy cap cookies. This is a mushroom which is treated as a spice, rather than a culinary side dish or main dish. Adding the dried and rehydrated mushrooms to a sugar cookie recipe produces maple-syrup-flavored cookies that are awesome and have mushrooms in them. I have collected (tediously, as the mushrooms are small and do not add up quickly to enough to make a batch of cookies) this mushroom...and yeah, those are some awesome cookies. Sometimes I want to make maple syrup cookies but it wouldn't be the same. They do make an awesome intro to your friends about why they should consider your mushroom hunting to be not something to fear for your life over, but something to consider as a wonderful culinarily relevant excuse to walk around in the woods, when undertaken with solid identification method and hopefully with a little guidance from experienced hunters.

What is a shrump?

To most people in the mushroom hunting community, a shrump is a bump in the duff or dirt with a mushroom under it, but the thing I find most intriguing about shrumps is that you just can't know what's in it until you look. It could be a stick, a pine cone, a turd, or even empty, perhaps occupied once by a mushroom that has melted away into the soil leaving only pushed up pine needles in its wake. Shrumps are easy to overlook if you don't know about them, but once you start searching you'll realize they're everywhere, sometimes filled with boletes and hidden treasure, but often disappointingly unoccupied. Like the event horizon of a black hole, a shrump is pure mystery. You know it's there, you can see its effect on the surrounding matter, but what's inside, you haven't the slightest. Luckily for us, unlike a black hole, the mystery of the shrump can be solved quite easily by opening it up and peering inside.

 Some may argue that if the bump in question is not above a mushroom, then it never was a shrump at all, but I think a shrump is a shrump until proven otherwise. In fact, sometimes I like to stand outside the supposed shrump and imagine what is most likely to be inside, delaying gratification until my curiosity overcomes me, at which point I stick in a finger and peel back the leaves, the wave function of shrump possibilities collapses and resolves into a single entity, the truth, which is more often than not a gopher hole.

 All metaphysical aspects aside, shrumps that do contain mushrooms are actually very common and easy to find. If you dare to penetrate them you may be rewarded with good visuals.


Here is a group of Zeller's Boletes (Boletus zelleri) that my mom had no idea were growing about five feet away from her driveway.

A common misconception that shouldn't deter you from poking shrumps is that mushroom toxins can soak through your skin and poison you. This is anti-fungal propaganda spread by uneducated people and worrisome mothers of small children. It's much more practical to worry about scorpions or gross rotten mushrooms being in the shrump, and that's why some people use a walking stick or similar probe to reveal what lies hidden. I like to use my hands personally, but if you want to remain unsoiled, it's up to you.

 Another reason you might be deterred from picking mushrooms is that you are afraid to damage the organism. You need not worry because the mushroom is actually just the reproductive part of a larger organism, the mycelium, which lives beneath the ground. As long as you slice off the mushroom or pinch it above the base, you can be reasonably sure not to damage the mycelium. For identification purposes it may be necessary to take the base of the stalk, but if your picking morels or some other well known species for the table it's best to leave the stumps in the ground. It's not well known how hard on the mycelium it is to pick a mushroom, but the ones that have evolved to be delicious must find that having their fruits plucked is made up for by the superior spore dispersal afforded by hungry animals.

Check out the fuzzy purple mycelium at the base of this blewit (Clitocybe nuda)
Mushrooms and other fungi are important environmentally for a number of reasons. Not only are they a major decomposer of organic matter, but they also form symbiotic relationships with many different plants and trees. Lichens are symbiotic organisms that are made up of a fungus and an algae, and are one of the first lifeforms to colonize inhospitable places. Mushrooms can also be beautiful, edible, consciousness expanding, deadly poisonous, medicinal or destructive and they provide a great place for bugs to hang out.


                                                                      Boletus zelleri


another Zeller's Bolete under a shrump

                                                    morchella sp.

                                       
                                      the blue staining orange peel fungus