Reykjavík Grapevine - 03.12.2010, Side 8

Reykjavík Grapevine - 03.12.2010, Side 8
8 Can you believe that the actual RAINBOW GUY, he of THE INTERNET, was here? In our very own Iceland? That's amazing. Here's hoping he comes back for a series of lectures. Article | Rainbows In Rainbow We Trust ‘Double Rainbow Guy’ heeds higher calling and visits Iceland paul Vasquez, AKA double Rainbow Guy, was in Iceland this past month to spread the word of the Rainbow. As readers familiar with youTube will recall, paul's video, which he posted on January 8, 2010, created a sensa- tion this past summer after Jimmy Kimmel “tweeted” it on July 3rd. The video has since received over 19 million hits and paul has been nomi- nated for a new category in the 2011 people's Choice Awards, i.e. 'Favor- ite Viral Video Star'. The Grapevine had the pleasure of interviewing the famous double Rainbow Guy before he set off on his tour of southern Iceland, his first trip outside North America. And he picks Iceland. BUT WHAT dOES IT MEAN? RAGS TO RAINBOWS In line with the popular narrative so dear to the American entertainment industry, Paul Vasquez' story is one of rags to rain- bows. He describes an abusive upbring- ing in the rough streets of East L.A.: “It was a ghetto…I was born to a woman who beat me so bad that I thought she was going to kill me.” Paul, who is of Mexican and Native American descent, grew up to be a firefighter and it was this that first brought him to Yosemite National Park in 1985. By 1990, after a short-lived marriage that resulted in two children, Paul was living alone, in the same home that features in his YouTube videos, on a remote plot of land about 16 kilometres (“as the crow flies”) from the park's border. For the following two decades, Paul leads a lonely existence: “I drove long-haul trucks in 48 states and Canada for ten years and one day. Meanwhile I was just living alone on that mountain out in the middle of nowhere, and that put me through a big transfor- mation.” Paul’s transformation centered on his relationship with women and what he calls “femininity.” In January 2009, after almost twenty years of isolation, “I called femininity into my life” by joining WWOOF, World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, and “all these beauti- ful, young women started coming to me from all over the world.” Incidentally, Paul is interested in local, sustainable farming and in addition to “breeding dogs for cash,” he has an organic farm with “25 fruit trees, gardens and chickens.” After a year of hosting WWOOF volunteers, Paul arrives at a profound realization: “I had owed a debt to femininity. I needed to learn how to love women without sex because…I was damaged [from child- hood].” Paul attaches a lot of importance to his various epiphanies, and claims that they are often accompanied by outward signs, which he then tries to capture on video for YouTube: “My videos are those signs of my spiritual and emotional pro- gression.” MESSAGES FROM GOd In this way, Paul interprets the double rainbow as an outward manifesta- tion of a moment of inner clarity. As the WWOOF volunteers’ stay was only temporary, their departure cast a dark shadow over rainbow land: “I gave them all a piece of my heart, and at the end of the summer, I was left with a big whole in my chest.” Paul sought help from various sources, “I was going to a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a doctor, a shaman, and I was doing sweats just to try and figure it all out, and then at the beginning of this year, I figured it out and it was like com- ing out of a cocoon...and that’s when the double rainbow came, and it was like: I understand and I caught it all on video!” Paul further interprets these outward signs as messages from God: “It doesn’t show that well on my inexpensive cam- era, but it was a complete disc of colour. It looked like a giant eye looking at me… that must be God’s eye.” Paul eventually came to the conclusion that God chose him to spread a message to humanity, which he has distilled into three decrees: “Love your fellow man, walk gently on Mother Earth and connect to Spirit.” Yet, besides practicing Native Ameri- can spiritual traditions, Paul is not affili- ated to any religious organisation and his idea of God is expansive: “I think all the rainbows are the spirit of the universe saying: “Look, pay attention to Mother Nature!” There is a spirit to the universe that you can connect into; it will make you more successful and happier.” As it happens, Paul is a big fan of both Oprah and Avatar. RAINBOW WARRIORS Since his video went viral, Paul has had to adjust to celebrity status. He describes how he can no longer keep track of the number of requests he receives from people wanting to live and work on his farm. “I call them rainbow warriors,” he says laughing. Speaking with Paul at Hressó, where he orders a humble breakfast of porridge, toast and coffee (with an elephant’s share of sugar mind you), I am struck by his sincerity and guru-like charm. Still, he carries more the aura of a harmless, West coast hip- pie than a zealous cult leader. It may be noteworthy to add that although Paul occasionally uses marijuana for medical reasons (he has a prescription), and ad- mits to having experimented with other hallucinogens, he claims not to have been under the influence of any drugs when he shot the famous Double Rain- bow video. THERE IS A BALANCE I question whether Paul can use his new- found fame to bring awareness to spe- cific environmental and social causes and thus spread his overall message of peace, love and environmental sustain- ability in a more direct way. Paul nods his head in agreement and cites some of his political interests, such as Native Ameri- can rights and his distrust of monocul- ture in the agricultural industry. And yet, these causes seem overshadowed by such self-aggrandizing measures as his YouTube campaign to get on Oprah and by ingratiating himself to corpora- tions such as Microsoft, Subaru and Sony. But Paul disagrees: “There is a bal- ance. You can't just live in a hole. We're living in reality here...everyone's gotta have some kind of toll. The problem is greed, I mean how much wealth do you need, how many houses and cars? Some people have so much wealth, it doesn't make sense.” But is there any company Paul would refuse to work with? "I don't like McDonalds". At the loss of some poetic justice, it was not Iceland's McDonalds-free sta- tus that brought Paul here, but rather the student council of a local second- ary school, Menntaskólinn Hraðbraut. For the fun of it. Although Paul seems geared up to celebrate with the students, and plans to take lots of videos with his new, underwater camera throughout his stay, he does not like leaving his home on Bear Mountain. “I was called here, I have a job to do, that's why God showed him- self to me.” At the time of the interview, Paul had yet to see an Icelandic rainbow, but if he goes bananas over potential rainbows at Gullfoss or the green rains of Aurora Borealis, I’m confident you will be able to check it out on YouTube. ALdA KRAVEC OddUR EySTEINN The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 18 — 2010 As a stranger, you can understand some things because you don’t un- derstand everything. That was a leitmotif of my stay in Iceland and a personal justification for conduct- ing my research there. The aim of my three month long postdoctoral research project at the University of Iceland was to look at how so- cial bonds in Iceland have changed because of the economic crisis. In a way I was prepared for this ex- perience, being sort of an expert on the subject - social capital. On the other hand, I was an outsider, visiting Iceland for the first time and speaking hardly any Icelandic. So I repeated like a mantra: “as a stranger you can…” any time I was faced with a situation where I had no idea what was going on.. Among the results of the project there are some findings I would like to share with you Grapevine readers. The data shows that there has been a recent change in the values and attitudes of people in Iceland. I made comparisons between the results of my own survey conducted in the spring of 2010 and data from before the crisis—the years 2004/5 (European Social Survey), 1999 and 1984 (both World Values Survey). From the ESS and WVS data sets I se- lected subsamples of students as my survey had been based on a sample of students. TRUST, LACK THEREOF Before the economic crisis, Iceland was one of the world’s most trusting societies. Only Scandinavian countries like Norway and Denmark were slightly ahead. Today, this is no longer the case. Levels of social trust have dropped significantly in Iceland, increasing the distance between Iceland and Scandi- navia. However, Icelanders still display relatively high levels of trust, much higher in fact than in continental Eu- rope, and this is the outcome I want to stress. What is notable in Iceland is that it is trust in parliament, the legal system, politicians and political parties that has dropped significantly. Only trust in the police remains as high as it was before the crisis. This makes for a disturbing picture, although some people might say that it is obvious that trust toward institutions will decline during an eco- nomic crisis. But when the trust be- tween ordinary people drops too, this means that society is undergoing a big- ger change. INdEpENdENT pEOpLE? An economic crisis can go beyond eco- nomics. When Finland went through economic problems in the 1990s, po- litical scientists claimed that there was nothing to worry about, as despite the decrease in trust toward institutions, trust between people remained con- stant. Social trust—the assumption that other people are willing to cooperate and have benevolent intent towards one another—is something that keeps the core of a society together. Finland in the 1990s bounced back and con- quered the world, or at least cornered the market in mobile phones with its in- novative Nokia products. This is a situ- ation which would not have been pos- sible without social trust, since people need to know that they will be listen to and respected when they come up with new ideas: that is how an innovative economy works. Icelanders are renowned for be- ing independent people, and not only because of the internationally famous book by Halldór Laxness. It is rather the other way around. The book became fa- mous because of the truth of the values mocked within it. My research may be small in scale but it suggests that dur- ing the last 26 years—what we gener- ally refer to as one generation—social embeddedness has become more and more important for Icelanders. Let me explain what I mean. Social embedded- ness has many aspects; one of them is the relationship between adult children and their parents. If adult children look up to their parents for help and support, it means that they give up some of their z for the price of this social embedded- ness. The countries wherein adult chil- dren are the most independent from their parents are Norway, The Neth- erlands, Sweden and Denmark. At the other end of this continuum are Poland, India and South Korea. The situation in Iceland has changed gradually over the last 26 years. Nowadays young Iceland- ers expect parental help to a greater extent compared to their parents when they were young. This is probably due to the unstable economic situation and the difficulty of finding a first job with proper wages. These findings go along with the idea of Icelanders as brave, well-in- tegrated and independent people at the same time, although this is only scratching the surface of a very deep subject. Ancient philosophers teach us that we can easily be misguided by our senses while modern sociologists know that we can easily be misled by statis- tics. There are many ways of depicting reality. And the one that appeals to us tends to be the one that appeals to our hearts. A Crisis Of Trust? KATARzyNA GROWIEC Article | Katarzyna Growiec “Before the economic crisis, Iceland was one of the world’s most trusting societies. Only Scandinavian countries like Norway and Denmark were slightly ahead. Today, this is no longer the case.”

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