I have friends. Some people still cant believe this but I do. Most them have way more important/exciting things going on than me so I thought it might be a great way to increase my traffic if I started exploiting their lives along with my own. Jordan is in Pakistan.

Just back from a wild 120 hour humanitarian mission in Islamabad, Pakistan. The Islamic Republic of Pakistan is suffering through one of the largest humanitarian crisis’s in human history and barely anyone knows about it. I was there with Christian Troy, on behalf of NGO’s Waves For Water and JP HRO CEO, to assess the damage and identify ways aid in the relief effort. 20 million people have been affected by the severe flooding in Pakistan – a number greater than the total affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 northern Pakistan earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake, COMBINED. These families have lost everything. Entire bloodlines are on the precipice of extinction while men, women and children unnecessarily die from waterborne diseases, hunger and severe malnutrition. The people here are smart. They are kind, family orientated, loving and despite the seemingly never-ending struggle the Pakistani people have endured, they seem to maintain a deep-rooted sense of strength and benevolence and so its not surprising that we have been treated with respect and gracious hospitality despite the fact that our country is fighting a war in their backyard. As our invaluable Pakistani fixer Umer told us last night, “you may be infidels, but you’re OUR infidels.” More to come, Jordan Tappis

Children at the IDN camp in Northwest Peshawar.  There was a conjunctivitis outbreak the day we arrived so we had to keep our hands to ourselves.

Saudi King Faisal donated this mosque to the people of Pakistan in the 80′s. To this day its the largest house of warship in South Asia.

Jordan is making friends. Find out more about waves for water here.

after 2 years working on the same project,  jordan and i decided to regroup in the desert and figure out what comes next… this is what it looks like to get lost for 48 hours.

not that i’m into corpse robbing or anything but i couldn’t pass up the chance to validate my stance on atheism… plus having a 90% intact mummified body makes for an awesome conversation piece when the cenus folks stop by.

death valley.

we tried to spend as much time as possible off the highways. we had one stretch that went over a 100 miles without seeing asphalt or a road sign.

attempting to live out a car commercial.

the first nights accommodations were kind of shitty.

desert crack head ingenuity at its best. my new weapon of choice.

the end of day one.

pahrump has a lot of churches.

pahrump has even more whore houses!

they even have them in gas stations.

after passing the third brothel we got the balls to ring the bell and see what the deal was. at 10 am on a tuesday morning, madame butterfly’s was not all that alive… the “madame” was a 20 year old goth chick that had been working there for 3 weeks after finding the job through a classified ad. before we could tell her that we were just exploring she hit play on her cassette deck and 10 half asleep hookers came into the room dancing to r. kelly’s bump and grind. the reality of the pahrump sex industry is that the prostitues look more like edward james olmos than the do women which was beyond magical with “mr. showbiz” as the soundtrack.

the only photo i was allowed to take inside madame butterfly’s.

local sisterhood union 154.

just 4 hours outside of LA.

we drove through that mountain range on a dirt road covered in snow. the plan was if we didn’t see any signs, roads or people we would turn around at a half tank…

Jordan found this photo of us from our first business venture as the executioners of our 6th grade medieval fair. 20 years later we made a movie that should be coming out soon…

The Roosevelt hotel’s room service can supply you with everything you need to give a friend a tattoo when all the tattoo shops are closed or you’re just too tired to leave your room. Dan was nice enough to donate some space on his chest so  I could prove a point one dark dark evening.

Not my first but definitely one of my favorites.

Don King and Har Mar Superstar proving that anything is possible in the USA!

This is what falling in love looks like. I think this photo is from the week we met. Its been almost five months and I’m really happy.

Charles Smith understands that sometimes you have to just dive in if you want to get wet.

I once was a gentleman.

Yep.

Trace Marshall & Alex Knost Colab? 

The part of Texas you try to forget.

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Jordan, Sage and myself shared a room in Miami for art basel last year. We learned a lot about ourselves on that trip that I think I will save for an exclusive post to mark the 1 year anniversary.

I feel like this photo could be a screen grab from a sitcom where the rugged outsider guy becomes Mr. mom and is mixing baby formula in the kitchen while entertaining guests and sharing stories from his shady past.

Tim Gavin is a father. 

Cameron’s lawn is made out of dirt.

Back before I had learned how to speak english the Dilman took me in and taught me the ways of America…

The love that never was.

Summertime. 

Cali can even make Bells Palsy look good.

On his visit he befriended Dr. Brian Cox who is the head physisits of the ATALS program. While Brian was in LA I got the chance to spend some time with him and get a rough understanding of what it is that he does.

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CERN’s LHC is big and really expensive. 100 meters underground, 27 km long and has cost close to 8 billion dollars so far.

A man who really wants to find the Higgs Boson.

The LHC is operational and is presently in the process of being prepared for collisions. The first beams were circulated through the collider on 10 September 2008, and the first high-energy collisions are expected to take place after 6-8 weeks!

Multi platinum musician / Science Groupie…

Brian promised us that we would not be sucked up by the LHC… I guess we will find out soon.

You can download the entire issue as a PDF Right Click.  (28 megs)

It ended up being much harder than expected to put together but now that its finished,  I’m really happy with the final product and appreciate the opportunity to try something new as well as to introduce a bunch of rich people to a group of  friends that don’t usually make it to the BU…

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I feel very lucky to know so many people that came through to make this issue happen from the contributors to all the people that were featured in the issue.