The year I pen this is two thousand and sixteen.
I sit in a kitchen that badly needs to be refurnished as I drink a whiskey on the rocks. (Always drink Jameson)
I sit here in the summer heat, enjoying this moment ( which if I'm being honest is rare because usually I'm not a fan of the heat) but today for some reason I'm having thoughts of San Francisco- the beat poets, Hunter Thompson, Oakland California right next door and the Black Panther movement of the sixties..California has always been a place for artists and what some would call the "Freak culture." I myself just know it as "home."
The sparks you could strike seem to have been reduced to small trashcan fires and bonfires on the beach, the love and hate seem to have created a haze of digital indifference. The power of the state seems to have shifted, yet days like these- these hot summer days that turn into beautiful warm summer nights...one can almost understand what it's like to be cast into those golden hills that run through the state.
A place for poets and musicians, a place for artists and life changes, a state that can and will eat you alive and spit you out without care for you after.
The spoils are all around if you're brave enough, clever enough, and just dumb enough to take a risk. We're not talking Vegas risk, we're talking every stone is make or break and if you slip and fall into the river, you'll be bashed against the rocks and your crippled, broken body will be tossed aside.
Yet moments like this- these golden afternoons, the charm of the state is revealed, the beauty and innocent side is shown, the sweet, loving, warm side of California shines through.
The old heads are still in a park chasing the dream of the beaten system, while the twenty-something tech heads bask in the future start-up possibility that this state brings.
One day when the water level rises, when it takes back everything and the Golden Gate sinks, there will be those who will make one last effort to preserve the Californian style...we're sitting on a land of dreams, broken,shattered and new, we're sitting on a land made of gold and dirt.
I think that's the irony and it sums up this- The prize is there, it's under the skin, under the dirt, under the trash, it's gold, pure, raw, ever staying gold.
But only for those with a strong enough will to keep digging.