Spent almost the whole weekend in the garden: planting, cleaning and preparing some beds at home, then building a series of brick beds at the Thistle where we are taking over a big chunk of lousy industrial land for a community garden. It was all great, of course – and it’s amazing how many people want to stop and talk – sometimes its freaking hard to get anything done cause everyone wants to pull by and socialize. But it’s also amazing to me just how much genuine interest there is in growing food.

I was just in SF, Seattle and Portland and the excitement around urban farming, backyard chickens, for reimagining the city as an agriculture site is even stronger there than it is here, as far as I can tell, and there’s a ton of interest in this city.

Some of that interest is voyeuristic, lots of it is talk, lots of it yuppie self-absorption – but for the most part I think the enthusiasm is for real. And understandable. It’s awesome to grow food. It’s a miracle to grow big plants from tiny seeds (not to go all flake here, but you understand). It’s great not to have to buy eggs any more.

But I think the root (as it were) excitement is something else. In January we started a urban farming group at the Thistle, expecting that a few kids might be keen, but now we have a huge crew of more than 20 kids who are genuinely juiced about growing food. And it seems like the group just keeps growing (as it were) (!) (Fuck, sorry for the cheesy gardening metaphors. But it’s a blog, I’m not editing it much). We have big plans and are taking over a ton of essentially abandoned shitty industrial territory.

I think that all of us are excited about gardening, sure, but I think it’s more than that. I think we are thrilled to be doing something. In a world swamped by digitality, where so many of us spend all our days sitting on our asses, where work means typing all day, where Facebook is the site of most people’s primary relationships, where people get their insights from Twitter, where all our days are dominated by screens - the opportunity to do something real, something tangible is like a cool drink of water on a hot day.

Stats released this weekend from a recent poll by Ipsos Reid show that on-line time is increasing – 18 hours per week on average for Canadians – but TV time is still at 16.9 hours per week (if you’re scoring at home that’s 5 hours per day total) . And that doesn’t include screen time at work, movies, video games or portable screen devices like gameboys or Ithings. Ours is a world lived on screen. (He says while writing a blog). And that doesn’t include all the time spent at school and work buried in abstract thinking, divorced from the ‘real’ world, the world of things, and of consequence.

I think that people love gardening because it is sweet relief from a digital world that seems so insufferable, meaningless and transitory. Being in the garden is a world of things, of flesh-and-blood people who want to talk, of dirt and sweat, of smell and bugs. It’s a ton of fun, but I think more than anything it’s that because its not on screen that makes it matter.

Welcome to the World Socialist Club America! Your password and code name will be emailed to you shortly. Please keep all information totally secret as there are a few rogue states out there who have yet to accept the inevitable domination of the Red Conspiracy. But welcome! We are glad to finally have you in the fold. We trust you will not be disappointed with our products and services.

As some irritatingly astute commentators (Limbaugh, Bachman, Beck et al) continue to suspect, the World Socialist Club is maintained by an unelected Board of Directors that meets monthly in a secret spa in the south of France. The Board is made up of both nine (9) permanent spots including four effete Euros, two ex-USSR officials, two North Koreans and one Cuban. The seven (7) rotating spots are seventeen year terms and currently include Amy Goodman, Che Guevara’s corpse, a Quebecois, Bolivar, Evo Morales, Hugo Chavez, and a guy we found in Estonia who looks exactly like Lenin.

And now you! We will soon be creating a permanent USA spot to be named after Nancy Pelosi and initially filled by a representative of your – whups, I mean our – choice. (Remember your God-given freedoms are now limited, that’s included in the $200 trillion nation-bankrupting entry fee)

And it is true: all it took was some modest health care legislation and you’re in! That’s all! Amazing it took you so long to realize how cheap our entry fees are. And now you will be on the sweet, quick slide towards fully-fledged Godless Communism that will control every part of your life. Our highly trained Staff – the Pink Brigades – will be at your door shortly to confiscate personal items, mortgage documents, good-looking kids, American-made cars, most plastic items and flat-screens. Little Red Books, radios fixed permanently to NPR and a few dour Soviet-era fashion items will be distributed free of charge, sort of like welcome cookies. Finally, the Pinkos will be distributing the 8767-page Manual of Behavioural Expectations. Please do have it memorized for Thursday.

Because Thursday is the Welcoming Ceremony!! Invites and directions to Stockholm will be emailed shortly, but please do make sure to come (unless you are eager to hit the Gulag early!). We will be issuing the collective farm assignments then, handing out food ration cards and collecting passports. It will be awesome and fun.

Please remember to check your liberty and handguns at the door.

And I mean that in the wrong way. I’m rolling off today to Honolulu, then back to SF etc. Yeah I know. Cry me a freaking river. Not feeling it right now, think I’d be just fine never to get on another plane in my life, but I”m sure it’ll be all good to get some sun. Then I’m running up and down the coast on a quick tour. Here’s a  look at my new schtick - maybe you’ll like it. It’s a bit of a departure, but getting better I think:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ly5P9o2fT0&feature=related

In related news, got 11 yards of compost delivered this weekend and me, Mark and Bruce moved it all weekend - Magnolia too, thanks for dropping in.  Do you know how much 11 yards is? A hell of a lot. We have some left over (!). But really, it was the greatest - I could not be more stoked about growing food. And if you are in Vancouver, on the 25th of this month Will Allen is coming to speak. He is solid gold. Come see him if at all possible.  It’s free.

OK, done. I’m going to write something from Waikiki - wondering if it really is this city’s fate.