HEY REID! Greetings form California! I have some great news for you! It’s the dawning of the AGE OF AQUARIUS! Now, what does this super new thing mean to “the man on the street” (i.e., your typical “Joe Six-Pack”, ordinary schlubs like you and me)? Great question, my friend. I wondered the same thing, so I asked a hippie on the street. He was very excited and started to answer the question, but as soon as he opened his mouth lasers rained down from the sky like a multi-colored apocalypse hellstorm and his head exploded into a thousand pieces. A geyser of smoke and fire and heartworms and THC-scented glop shot out of his neck stump and then his lifeless body fell over. The hippie-corpse-on-pavement thud announced the arrival of a spectacular man who descended from the sky on rocket boots. He landed on the rapidly putrefying body and helpfully explained what this sweet new age of enlightenment means for us here on Earth.
Mike: You look like one of the guys from Mythbusters. Are you?
I’m in a coffee shop in Berkeley, a few blocks from my friend Ben’s apartment. Ben is letting me stay here while I recover from my wild boar attack. I’ve alternately struggled and dealt with my depression for most of my adult life, and being boar-hobbled has me feeling a little down. But the sun is out today, and it helps to be outside and near other people — I’m in a little courtyard area right now, and a nearby couple is talking about sustainable construction techniques. Jefferson Airplane was playing on the stereo earlier, and before that I walked through a gigantic cloud of pungent marijuana smoke with no apparent source. I’m happy that Berkeley hasn’t challenged any of my preconceptions about it.
