#Mustached #tree man #spring #nature #moustache
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Coachella and Other Things You Can’t Afford
I am a (reasonably) young, “creative” person living in an urban environment. As such, essentially everyone I know purports to be poor. Like, super poor (their emphasis, not mine). Now, not to get all Reagan on your ass, but I fully believe that my friends’ particular breed of poverty is a choice. They’re not poor because they have to work two jobs to pay for their mother’s chemotherapy. They’re not poor because they were born disenfranchised. They’re poor because they waste their money on stupid, superfluous shit that does nothing to better their quality of life, because they still complain incessantly about being depressed.
Unless you’re attending as a paid member of the Monster™ Energy Extreme Promotional Team, if you’re going to Coachella this weekend, you no doubt shelled out tons of cash for tickets. Know what would have been a more productive thing to buy? Health insurance. If you’re wasting what little scratch you have on the tired, money-sucking trappings of young life that I’ll outline below, check yourself before you wreck yourself. Any by “yourself,” I mean your credit (which is what defines your worth as a human anyway).
FESTIVAL TICKETS
My great-grandmother spent a couple weekends in the desert once—escaping the Turks, who had murdered her entire family. The modern day equivalent of her journey consists of shitheads with Skrillex haircuts shlepping out to the godless wasteland that is the Coachella valley and spending $400 for the privilege of getting dehydrated on $12 beers, being aggressively marketed to by tech companies, and listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. No wonder the members of this generation have no goddamned character.
BRUNCH
According to my father, food exists solely to “make turds.” Viewing food as turd fuel means:
A) The word “brioche” doesn’t need to be in your vocabulary,
and
B) You don’t have to waste $30 every Sunday eating overpriced turd fuel in the company of women in sundresses and your hungover, financially irresponsible peers.
Remember Haiti? Giles Clarke Does
On January 12, 2010, a massive earthquake hit Haiti, killing over 230,000 people, injuring many more, and leaving 1.5 million homeless. Although the media has since moved on for the most part, many Haitians are still struggling in scores of tent cities around Port-au-Prince and all along the coast. In Léogâne, a seaside town near the epicenter of the quake, 90 percent of the town’s buildings were destroyed and a quarter of its residents died. Many aid organizations such as Medicin sans Frontieres had two-year contracts from the Haitian government to provide services to the tent cities, but these contracts have quietly been allowed to expire, leaving thousands of families in dire straits. Many don’t like to talk about the earthquake and find solace in the spiritual—either in Christian churches or at voodoo ceremonies. There are now over 12,000 registered NGO organizations in Haiti, which is still the poorest country in the western hemisphere.
Léogâne, 20 miles to the west of Port-au-Prince, was one of the hardest-hit towns. Survivors were treated on hospital ships that moored just off the coast in those first frantic few days following the quake.
The UN and many international aid agencies are actively helping the people rebuild their homes and lives. Many of the town’s surviving residents will never sleep in stone buildings again and now camp in tents and makeshift houses behind the dilapidated ruins of the few remaining buildings.
A bird’s eye view of Cité Soleil, a shanty town near Port-au-Prince that grew to an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 residents, the majority of whom live in extreme poverty. The area is generally regarded as one of the poorest and most dangerous areas of the western hemisphere and it is one of the world’s largest slums. Cité Soleil has has a poorly maintained open canal system that serves as its sewage system, few formal businesses, sporadic but largely free electricity, a few hospitals, and a single government school, Lycee Nationale de Cite Soleil.
Children on the seawall in Cité Soleil. The boats in the background are laden with charcoal that is shipped in from an island just off the coast to the north.
Listen to La Paix by Alkibar Gignor.
