Look At The Pretty Colors, Man

Somebody help me. I'm not sure what year it is. It's 2006!? You'll have to excuse my confusion because I just saw a film called "Desert Wind" (Le Souffle du Désert), and I felt like I had landed back in the 60's. It's all the fault of a documentary filmmaker named Francois Kohler, who in March of 2004, took 13 men on a two-week trek through the Sahara Desert in Tunisia. Joining them were a Swiss psychotherapist and a team of Tunisian guides and a fun group of camels.

The purpose of this traipsing through the desert was to have a men's encounter group. There's a reason that this stuff died a miserable death 40 years ago. It's psychobabble and a return to a time of Werner Erhard's "est." This nonsensical waste of everyone's time is designed to free today's man from the self-imposed bonds that society "forces" us to live with.

The men are encouraged to share their deepest anxieties as a way of purifying themselves and allowing them to re-enter the world and reach their full potential. Yeah, sure. That'll work. It is mildly amusing to watch these idiots cry and tell us that they are now truly free and rid of the constraints that held them back from their potential greatness. One fellow, who is obviously the type of person that no one could possibly like, jumps wholeheartedly into this trash without realizing that he was a jerk before and he always will be. He incessantly makes lots of noise and makes sure he is the center of attention.

You know that a few weeks, maybe even days after this stuff was over, that every single one of them reverted to the person they were before. And what's wrong with that? The idea that 2 weeks prancing around in 120 degree weather will pave the way to a new and better life is the thinking of 5 year-olds. For those who remain interested in this sort of exercise, all I can do is pray that I don't ever have to ever listen to one of your self-indulgent "deep thought" sessions.