In which reality blows by satire
- Thread starter Christian Miller (CMM)
- Start date
Ian Fitzsimmons
Ian Fitzsimmons
Wait ... do you mean funny as in funny, or as in funny?
Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
Um, more off-topic allusive disorder, in this case. I don't believe I showed any emotion in either direction.
Eden Mylunsch
Eden Mylunsch
Now that you mention it, I found myself back in the early 1970s (not "found myself" in the HG Welles, Time Machine sense, but more the touchy-feely sense of "finding" oneself) with Werner Erhard and est. He was a devil in the after-session hot tub sessions, but I got pissed off because they well, wouldn't let me piss off when I needed to during the sessions so I stomped out. However, the course was taking place in a fancy Marin County hotel and they'd locked all the bathrooms shut so I went next door to use the facilities and it turned out to be a wine shop. On my way back to the restroom, low (it was on the bottom shelf) and behold (the shelf was shiny with furniture polish), what did I see but a bottle of wine called Est! Est! Est!
I took it as a sign, the sort of a sign that a budding signtologist such as moi would have noticed and on my way back from the bathroom, I used what little money hadn't been mulcted by the cultists to buy a bottle. I mean, how bad could it be? Well, at that stage of my wine development (nil), even I didn't like its sweet flabbiness and its apparent tradeoff of character for a good story. Hell, this could stand as an avatar for the movie industry nowadays. But I digress. Being more than a little OCD (not bipolar, because I don't believe what I haven't seen and I don't actually believe that there's anything at the South Pole, regardless of how important the British think the Falklands are. Dammit! I've digressed again, right? So where were we, anyway? Oh yeah. Est! (not est!).
So I bought a bottle of that crap and "being a little OCD" I read up about it and learnt that it was made of Trebbiano and some other grape that may or may end in a vowel. But I forgot which one it was by the time I got back to the shop (it was in Marin and was called the Fern Wine Shop and thus had a good selection of non-domestic bottles) and they told me that they had some stuff called Valentini that that was made of Trebbiano too and that I should buy it because it was expensive and that I should stick it where the sun don't shine for a long time.
The sun did indeed come out in the late 1980s and I caught that wave and took it as a sine (I was working to create silicone valleys by designing electric breast implants by that time) and I popped open the Valentini and it was good. I sought more because it made me want to write like Ernest Hemingway but my writing, it was not good. But still, it could be said that I owe my career as an internet wine wienie to that fateful day at est. And Est! Est! Est!
It was an interesting era of my life (yeah, I'm digressing again, but there's a point to it). Anyhow, I once installed a set of Grado headphones into some breast implants but my company went out of business due to liability issues because the implantee's boyfriend was smothered to death because he became so enraptured by the remastered version of "Dark Side of the Moon". It was written in the owner's manual to always listen facing away from the music (due to phasing issues) but he apparently wasn't the sort to follow instructions. Rather than pay the jury's award, we filed for bankruptcy and began development work on a high quality interactive tombstone. You can talk with the deceased and watch videos of them talking about all the things they did in life, and when you put flowers on the grave, it thanks you.
Okay, so maybe there wasn't a point. Deal with it. Werner would have, y'know?
-Eden (happy now to just be here in Malibu drinking a lot of 2009 Cru Beaujolais, working through the entire Josh Raynolds series of motivational CDs, baking medicinal pot brownies for my surfer friends, and just generally basking in the awesomeness that surrounds me. Est! baby, Est!)
Oswaldo Costa
Oswaldo Costa
+1 (what the future would have lost if pissing had been allowed during sessions).
Ian Fitzsimmons
Ian Fitzsimmons
[obeisance emoticon]. Jo was right. Joe was right.
I have a dear friend who did the EST thing in the 70s and told me about the proscription of peeing during those meetings. Now I think of her whenever I swim and invariably feel the pressing urge just as I've started a 600 free-style ladder. Which is kind of funny, though not funny like your story, which is really funny, is funny.
On the other hand, the EST discipline sounds like ideal training for hot tub sessions. As to putting bottles of wine where the sun doesn't shine, the mind boggles.
I have a dear friend who did the EST thing in the 70s and told me about the proscription of peeing during those meetings. Now I think of her whenever I swim and invariably feel the pressing urge just as I've started a 600 free-style ladder. Which is kind of funny, though not funny like your story, which is really funny, is funny.
On the other hand, the EST discipline sounds like ideal training for hot tub sessions. As to putting bottles of wine where the sun doesn't shine, the mind boggles.
Peter Creasey
Peter Creasey
E, Interesting!
. . . . . Pete
P.S. Perhaps you have a distant (or near) relationship with Randall Grahm!?!
Lou Kessler
Lou Kessler
Werner Erhard was not his real name.I can't remember it as of this moment but I do recall he was a nice Jewish boychik who worked as a used car salesman until he found prosperity in thousands of pigeons who resided in the LA area. My brother-in-law was dragged to one of Werner's sessions in Hollywood by his wife but he walked out and took a cab home. He did receive Werner's little brown book which was supposed to make you understand life in it's entirety.
I do remember with great fondness some of his sayings "It is bettter to ride the horse in the direction he is going," MAN THAT'S DEEP.
Eden, did Werner save your life?
I do remember with great fondness some of his sayings "It is bettter to ride the horse in the direction he is going," MAN THAT'S DEEP.
Eden, did Werner save your life?
Steve Guattery
Steve Guattery
Barbara Grizzuti Harrison amusingly recounted her est session in her book "Off Center", including the restrictions on using the bathrooms. Worth reading, if anyone cares about est anymore.
Eden Mylunsch
Eden Mylunsch
Naw, but he certainly provided some good fodder for stories around the dinner table over the years.
-Eden ('twas a bottle of 59 JJ Prüm BA that saved my life)
Eden, you never cease to amaze me. As it turns out, the teachings of Werner Erhard & est still live on. Most notably locally here in SF, in the form of Landmark Education. It's quite popular in certain circles among the "life-coaching" set and operates the left-coast Cafe Gratitude chain, among other nefarious activities.
This article should be an amusing read for anyone old enough to remember est.
This article should be an amusing read for anyone old enough to remember est.
David M. Bueker
David M. Bueker
Cue Dexter and Jordan Chase.
Eden Mylunsch
Eden Mylunsch
That's using your head.
-Eden (what's the name of the place? Gotta URL?)
Larry Stein
Larry Stein
I thought those were all taco trucks. Do they have a sit-down restaurant, too?