The Dashing Life and Exuberant Times of Brian Harrison....And Other Rare Anecdotes

Accidentally Sneaking into a Korean Military Base...their President's Backyard actually.

2011-11-24T23:37:00.000-08:00

Every stupid move deserves another.
This was how it all happened. It was a mistake, an honest to goodness mistake. One of those fumbling, stooge-like mistakes that somersault into buffoonry, slip into absurdity, but yet emerges perhaps what could be dangerous dust, but falls altogether, nice and charming, like an afternoon anecdote of miscalculated wiles.

Stupidity for the most of us is a dull balm that hangs upon our day like a thick vapor blotting out the sun of sense and reason. However, stupidity for me, is full-blown, a fitful gust, a shooting star emblazoning the day and night with its unquenchable embers.

That day in itself was a spectacular one to begin with. I'd spent the early afternoon at a shamanistic ceremony. I won't bother with the details but suffice it to say that there is a mountain just a hop from Central Seoul where concrete ends and a forest springs. Here in a spirit temple, a shamanistic priestess was performing all types of sacrifices. Involving dead pigs, a trident, a cow's head, and various dances and trances that supposedly channel dead spirits. I will not unwind any lengthy tale about the Mu falling into a trance and dancing chaotically all in black possessed by the departed, nor how these women witches smoke bunches of cigarettes at the same time ala Groucho Marx, nor will I bore you on how after praying over a large butchered sow, a champion priestess turns circus act climbing on precipices to stand on blades all the while singing. Nor will I bother you with any digressions on how this spot, this very temple was some time ago, used solely as a place to exorcize spirits probably the chief exorcism place in all of Korea. My tale is not of these. All of which are fascinating. See my videos and pictures. I caught footage of all this. Needless to say, the whole mountain is considered by many to be a magic mountain full of mysticism and strange, blood-let sacrifices.

No sooner than I left the ancient clamor ringing up the mountain, that I found another adventure which concerns my story here. As I bounded up the path leading towards the summit, I would pass an old lady or two sitting cross-legged, an incense stick burning nearby and pinches of grain they'd scatter as a type of offering to the mountain spirits. Hoisting myself to one overlook, I was given a great view of Seoul which towered in the close proximity, the high rise apartment buildings, like paths oEven amongst all these highly interesting things. I had already pierced through the cloud of the mundane, the fog of life, and was still yearning for the Heavens. The ancient fortress wall rode on the back of the mountain and every now and then a shadow seemed to stand peering at the tremendous view of Seoul across the way. I clambered my way up in that direction. Intent, as most mountain trekkers are, of perching myself in a sublime spot. The winds were nice, the rains were absent, the cold was long gone. It was the month of May and everything was solidly delightful. The old gates of Seoul are all named after mythical creatures pertaining to the 4 cardinal directions. I was near the wall of the White Tiger of the West. Weeks before I had explored the Blue Dragon of the East. I made it to one protruding rock and sat crossed-legged, mind emptied before the sun and the sky and God. And prayed for two friends who were having difficult times. One battles cancer another battles divorce, the cruel realities of a savage world. Wearisome adulthood. While I a child, frolic about the world making of it a playground.

As I was making my way up the path, a small group of elderly people had finished their grain offerings and were descending. This old man of the group asked me where it was that I intended on going. I told him that I was going up. He shook his head and warned me, “No.” This was the only English he could muster for this bit of advice. And I could not muster up any Korean to understand if he was giving the reason why. Besides, I thought he was just giving me delicate old man advice, not too different than delicate old lady advice. A hen-pecked old man's translation from an Old Wives' Tale. In truth, I thought he was only passing along the knowledge that there were no trails in that direction. The path ends, and so forth. But he obviously didn't know that by saying “no” gave me all the more incentive to say “yes” and go romping up the mountainside. No sooner than he uttered the impossibility of going any further up, than my eyes darted over and spotted a steep deer path. I thanked him for his advice and instead of following the path back around which would bring me back down the mountain from another direction, I feigned this descent, and when I saw he was gone, I bounded up the deer path, ducking under limbs and stomping through patches of grass on the hillside.

Eventually, I could see peeking through the foliage, gray stone -the wall. And upon emerging, I marked the barb-wire wrapped in coils.
“Boy, they really don't want anyone parading onto their walls. They really take their parks serious around here.” I said to myself.
I was sure it was some type of satellite dish or radio tower they were protecting. And I skirted around the heavy barbwire. There was an area of the barbwire that was torn off the wall and was laying discarded on the ground. To me proof that it was not too serious wherever I was intruding. I merely stepped over the barbwire and even snapped a shot of my foot over the barbed wire with my camera as I did so. Next, I scaled the old gray wall. Upon entering, there were no ambling hikers. No grandmas in visors and ski poles scuttling about. No old men in neon pinks and blue fending off the decline of their health. No glued-together couples that are found in every public spot across Korea looking as though they're in a 3 legged race. It was strangely not Korean, strangely vacant of people. Solitude in Korea is a highly barren feeling. And then I noticed closer to the crest of the mountain where all the heavy barbed wire hung. A few buildings, a basketball court, and a dog behind these massive coils. If I would've entered, had it been possible, right where I first came out of the woods, I'd would've landed myself there.

“Ohhhh”, I thought, “ How about that? I almost sneaked into a prison compound. What an idiot I would've been. “ And laughed a good chuckling laugh. I was pretty sure it was a prison for they had all the scenery that makes a good prison movie, the fierce German Shepherd chained to a dog house. A worn basketball court where someone is probably stabbed on a weekly basis. A weary, vulture-home look to everything, without the vultures. For that matter, no prisoners were bustling about either. “Must be inside stamping license plates, or decorating chopsticks...whatever inmates do in Korea.” I took my camera out of my pocket and snapped some shots thinking it would make a good picture in an album one day. “See here, kids this was the time that I came within 5 feet of breaking IN to a prison compound.” Then I'd embellish it a little bit, “Sometimes I got so bored with myself and I'd fantasize about how I'd escape from prison to the point, that I would attempt to break in, in order to break out.”
As I took these pictures. The German Shepherd barked his threatening bark, probably not knowing what to think of a person standing gawking into the prison, him being used to all the humans standing on the inside staring dreamily out.

I, ever so carefree, followed the ridge path up to the highest part of the ridge where two massive boulders sat, and stepping sprightly around one of these boulders my eyes spotted the trouble of what I had just climbed over the wall into. It was just at that moment of good-feeling and sunshine, that I was probably well on the verge of bursting into song. For I tend to sing out loud when alone and walking like some modern-day Tom Bombadil, when I rounded the large boulder and saw two men standing dignified and at some important business. One dressed all in black and the other in camouflage. And my quick, careless bound out from behind that boulder seized their cautious natures, and set their hawkish eyes upon me. A look of flabbergast stretched onto their solid faces. That's when the realization hit, I hadn't almost sneaked into a prison, I had actually, very successfully sneaked into a Korean military base. It was all summed up in their looks of surprise and stupefaction.
In a flash I assessed the situation. My first inclination would've been to have hurled myself behind that boulder, if they hadn't turned to see me. But it was too late for that. The slightest feint to flee would be extraordinarily suspicious.

No, I devised to play, what has worked so wonderfully well before in other situations around the world, the dumb American card. Except in this case, it was every bit true. “But officer, I didn't KNOW this was a military base that I had stepped into. Which way is the Starbucks/McDonald's?”
As the soldier all in black approached. I mustered up all the affability, innocent expressions, good-naturedness, and utter block-headedness that was at my disposal at that moment. I play the dove-like fool amazingly well.

The officer spoke good English. “You do know that you are in a military base don't you? You're not supposed to be here.” His tone was nice and congenial, and put me in the assurance that I wouldn't be pistol-whipped yet.
“W-hhaat?” I made my eyes as big as they could. I tried to look overwhelmed as though I was registering everything. “Really?! Oh..no! I'm sooo sorry.”

“How did you get in?”
“Over the old wall. I hiked up from the temples down there.” pointing in the direction that I had just came.
He shook his head. “There are two ways out of here. You can go that way,” pointing in an area that was opposite with anything I was familiar with, “Or this way.” pointing still in another direction that I wasn't exactly sure where it lead but was still closer to the temple areas.
I chose this latter one.

“Okay, you just follow this trail, and you will pass many men positioned there. When you see them, just til them what you told me and they will let you pass.”

“Thank you. And again,” bowing which is the greatest sign of respect in Korea, “I apologize.” I think that I also complimented his English which is a good way to flatter in Korea.

I was relieved that the consequence was as light as my actual mistake. But the thought about these other sentries seemed dubious. “Oh great. Now, I'm to explain this stupid reason that I am trespassing on military property to a whole platoon of men. I wonder if I shall be interrogated about this. He probably sent me straight to my interrogator to be questioned.”
I knew that I was being watched from behind.
And as I walked around the bend where the scene of the German Shepherd, the basketball court, the huge coils of barbwire, in short, what I thought was a prison, the anxious thought flashed before me.
“Uh oh. I have in my pocket a camera that holds photographs of this very base. If they find this, this will harden my case against me being out for a leisurely stroll; they could very well incriminate me as a spy. I must keep this camera hidden at all costs.”

But I didn't meditate too much on this predicament, for it is in my nature to hold off thoughts for all the bad things that could happen in the middle of such circumstances and to sort of secretly laugh about it all.
I was walking on the ridge now on the path. To my right was the wall. I had the notion that if things got bad, then I could bound over this wall in one leap and then dart through the woods like old times, like the tomfoolery that was my youth that I never ever completely stepped out of. But then what? A blonde haired white man running loose in the area with squadrons at their beck and call? How long would that last? It was just a thought. Only if things got completely desperate, a bound over a wall is always an option.

And also, I didn't know this at the time, but it definitely would have influenced my thoughts had I had known, for I was in the close environs of what is the Blue House. The Blue House is the Korean version of the White House, the presidential mansion of the nation, where the president sits around doing whatever presidents do. I was basically, not only roaming around in the neighborhood but in a broad way, haphazardly frolicking in the president's backyard. Of course, I didn't know this at the time.

My path led down the ridge, and instead of creeping around surreptitiously, I thought it best to just stomp down the hill, absolute innocence my cloak. But it was something when out of the bushes on my left, or behind a tree, would shadows or figures would emerge all dressed in black. Like ninjas ready to spring, but they'd sort of nod or signal to me that it was okay, that they already knew my story and I'd continue on my merry, accidental-trespassing way. Eventually, I was halted. And this fellow in camouflage came down the hill. It was the same guy who gave me directions previously. He would direct me further and be my guide out of here, or to whatever dark dungeon they were taking me.

He was a young man. If not my age, then a little older. But as he accompanied me down the fortress wall, I soon realized he was some sort of high officer. For all the sentries would salute with passion and gusto, of what is becoming of lower soldiers in front of higher officers. His salute back was lackadaisical, as though the return salute was some over-used formality.

We passed, what I thought from across the mountain was an observation deck and it was, but one for military observations. Apparently, they were too busy watching the opposite direction, not looking at the way that I had wandered inside. It was here that we halted again.
“This is it. This could very well be where the dark room is where they place me under that bright lamp and get me to spill the beans, while a soldier named Scrappy punches me in the stomach multiple times.”

Up from another path from behind this large gate came this soldier all decked out in military gear. The first soldier I saw with a helmet on and a machine gun. He ran up as though something was of utmost importance. “Here we go.” I thought. But he was only some type of deliverer and gave my friend, the officer, a key.

And then we proceeded further. I began to make conversation with my guide. After apologizing for the 5th time or so, I told him that over to the East part of Seoul they have these same type walls that you can climb onto and a nice park, a man selling ice cream, a little museum even, and that I thought for sure that this was the same thing. It certainly looked like it from the distance. He only laughed and told me it was alright. As our path cut through a small forest we came to a small black iron gate. He unlocked the gate, told me this was the way out, and the funniest thing, he apologized to me. Which is a very Korean thing to do. “I'm sorry that our military base is situated right in the path of your day's frolic. Sorry that we interrupted your hiking by having this base here.” He didn't really say that. But the truth is had this been an American base, of which the irony is even being an American, had I stumbled upon their base, they would've cross-examined me in some basement somewhere just because its what they like to do. But no, this Korean base, I received only an escort out and then a very mild-mannered, “Sorry.” Come to think of it, they never asked me my name, my nationality, nor what I was doing in Korea. They probably rightfully assumed that I was an American. And something tells me that this sort of thing happens quite regularly.

What is the Deal with this New Immigration Law that Alabama is Enforcing.

2011-09-30T21:46:00.000-07:00

This is not an argument; this is only a story. I have no arguments. There really is no such thing as an objective argument. Only personal stories. -Of what one lives and experiences, thinks and believes. Hence we construct our views of Truth.

Once, many years ago, I recall driving from Alabama to Atlanta. I was on a main highway maybe an hour away from Atlanta. When my car broke down. Yes, it was a remarkable machine of contradictory moods and half-way destruction; Flip-lights and white. I loved that car but it was of a mercurial temperament. Anyways, she broke down on the side of this highway. And I sat in the median, without any knowledge of what to do. My car loaded with all types of books, but nothing worthy of car maintenance. (I wish quoting Shelly had a magical effect and could start a motor. I was soon to be wishing that if a person could quote the Bible, this being the steeple piercing horizon of the South, they'd magically stop their rush and help someone in need.)
It was an interesting place to be, for I sat on the trunk of my car and noticed all the traffic on either side of me like a sun-reflecting river. The sunlight hitting their windshields and the constant flow of cars. People coming and going. So many, many people. Everyone strangers. Everyone in a rush. But no one knowing about the stories or the lives in the vehicle next to them only in the space of a few yards. I was in a good position for a break down for I was up this gradual hill and could see the oncoming traffic and I knew that they could see me. In between these 2 highways of rumbling hurry, there was this beautiful median of grass, almost so large to be a meadow. I sat back taking it all in. I had no one to call for at this time, I didn't know anyone in the area. I would just wait on the good-naturedness of humanity that I was surrounded by.

Pretty soon, this good-naturedness I was hoping in, was more into rushing off to Atlanta to feed the homeless I am sure. I mean, so many people and not one would stop. I had my hazard lights on.And I don't look like a thug or punk, or even a hippie for I had short hair at this time. I mean, I even sort of resemble a Mormon when I have short hair. (Maybe that was the real reason no one stopped).

And I was in the South, where Southern Hospitality and Living for Jesus (pronounced with a strong "Jeee-sus!") are key words. But no. No one stopped. Not the flood of SUVs, suburban white families in route to the Atlanta Aquarium; I'd hate for them to lose a few precious minutes in front of a manta ray. Not the plethora of Ford Broncos, men who had worked hard all week in order to take a trip to a Braves Game. They shouldnt stop, I mean those baseball warm-ups are every bit as exciting as the actual game (Yes, exactly.) Not the myriad of business trippers who'd really like to check into their hotels before 5 o clock traffic envelopes Atlanta. (On this one, I am not being sarcastic and can actually understand.) Not even the church vans, on their route to Do What Jesus Would Do in today's world and go to Six Flaggs over Georgia. I mean, some poor kid may succumb to temptation and smoke a doobie if they don't get those kids to a roller coaster fast enough. However, no one stopped. But can I really hurl an accusation? For, I have been in their gas pedal pushing shoes as well and have not stopped. Enflamed by a tragic sense that I needed to get to where ever it was that I was going or the earth could very well blow up. Why stop? Poor schmuck, it was his dumb decision to not buy a reliable car, or gas up, or check his tires or whatever it was that has him on the side of the road. Not to mention the risks. This day and age crazy kids are likely to do anything. There could very well be a gang of kids with blonde hair and blue eyes, who sit around quoting Shelley, and when they have the chance they pose as pedestrians on highways, and cut out the heart (like Mary Shelley did with Percy Shelley's heart) of any who try to help. Dang kids will do anything for cheap, depraved entertainment these days.

Needless to say, I watched the cars. Like some enormously long funeral procession intent on burying the present moment and any kind act for the day. But from out of the zone of wheels turning to everyone's own individual predicament, this small, ugly, half-wreck of a car comes puttering out. Low-riding, with doors not matching the rest of the car. It stops right behind me. An instinct of caution forms for it looks like the type of car that would be a vulture of other cars or people stranded. Out hops this Mexican. He is very young, skinny. Is wearing a wife-beater, even has this skeezy little mustache that Hispanic jovens like to sport as an attempt to claim their much prized Machismo. A gold chain around his neck of some saint. I am sure he kisses it before making a dope sell. But he does the strangest thing. He helps me. He gives my car a momentarily quick fix. He completely shatters my stereotype of Hispanic youth, while probably affirming his own stereotype of us WASPs. "These white kids don't know how to do anything" I am sure he is thinking.
And then he even escorts me to the nearest car shop; follows me in his car which looks like it could use a visit there as well. I do not know this guy. I mean for all I know he could've been a Republican Senator's dark-skinned son. He could've even been in the military and had fought off a whole troop of Al-Qaeda spies. But I'd be willing to bet that none of these are true, and that the chances are pretty high that he was an illegal alien. I hate to stereotype...No, actually, I love to stereotype. I mean, if it isn't apparent from reading this. I stereotype everyone. I can't help it. From SUV drivers to Hispanics, from Church Van Drivers to Brave Fanatics. We all do it. I guess the problem is when we expect everything to actual fall into these stereotypes and leave little room for the good of someone to come out. The question is not whether he was an illegal alien or not. The question is...why should this even matter? He was just this kind individual who did a good deed. Alright, so Mexico could've beaten Brazil in some huge Soccer match that most Americans don't watch and he was ecstatic and loved everyone for a short time (there I go again) or he was merely doing Catholic penance for the shoot out he had at Grande Jose's Pool Hall (I just can't stop and need to do penance myself).

But it strikes me now, out of all those people that saw me broke down on the side of the road, it wasn't the church pastor who stopped or the theological seminary student who pulled over (albeit, if I know seminary students, this was probably due to his inability to fix a car as well). It wasn't the humble grandfatherly farmer, nor the leader of the local Boy Scout troop. No, it was some poor, young, delinquent looking Mexican. Who if I saw at Walmart, I'd assume he was a punk who was probably going to get free movies out of the Redbox machine. And the chances that he was an illegal are pretty high.

Reading the recent news on the Alabama Immigration Law made me remember this incident. Which really has nothing to do with the law. And it has nothing to do with labor rights. But everything to do with humanity, with judging, with the one thing that is beyond the law, compassion, with the idea of who exactly is our neighbor.

I don't know if you made the connection, but if you took this story and stripped it off its modern trappings. It is exactly the Good Samaritan Story retold. I had the fortune of witnessing this age-old plot play out right in front of me. This story makes me ashamed of this law being passed in Alabama and how kids, not different than you or I, are not going to school because they fear being deported. I'm sorry, I see nothing redeemable in this law. It seems very hateful and shows lack of perception. Thank you, state of Alabama, for making more Good Samaritans more and more rare.

A Slacker's Manifesto; A Recollection on Travel and How I was Possibly Working for the Mob.

2011-09-05T22:49:00.000-07:00

Now let me reminisce for awhile on an old job that I used to have. I was spoiled outright. And the blame rests solely on this shady boss who lived in Las Vegas and ran the whole operation. I think back and out of all my 4 years as a dutiful employee for this man, this enigma of voice and wallet behind the bank card that I was given, and of those frolicsome years, I had never face-to-face met the man. I knew he was a business man. And from his voice resonating on the other side of the company cell phone, I knew him to be a direct, shrewd businessman who doesn’t waste words nor time on anything. He had the stereotypical choleric nature. Something that bordered on the verge of being feudal and chief-like, though lordly and protective. Early on, I discovered that he was a native of New York City, I think, Brooklyn. He had that shell-like hardball edge to him. Sometimes talked as though he was yelling out of a taxi. And this one deep, deep fact…He was more Irish than half the bumbling barflies you’d ever meet in a pub in Dublin or Cork, even.

All this left me with the sense that I was part of something much deeper than I could understand. Though, I never cared to probe. I never asked questions , I wasn’t supposed to. I didn’t chew the gristle, so to speak, I merely did my job. Calling stores and traveling to them . He would call me…maybe once a month, maybe not. That was the overall supervision I had. I lived free. I worked when I wanted and played much more when I didn’t want to work. It was an ideal job for a gypsy with issues in sloth and without any ties to a lady or a child or both. I wandered the Deep South. -Was this national company’s representative of that area of the US. Sometimes roaming down backroads where chicken trucks were the norm. Sometimes, wandering through the remnants of Dixie’s old cities, decaying next to the river…a Memphis or a New Orleans. Usually always heedful of the state trooper’s flashing lights. I was Huck Finn falling off the raft into strange tributaries.

We grow up thinking that there is such a thing called a “real world” where the structures and life vehicles that hold our parents and grandparents the same must hold us. Even in my current life now, I often hear people talking about a “real world” (whatever they mean by that), as though being a teacher in Korea is not real enough. This job, I held before, was a fantastical dream if one thinks that teaching in Korea is not a job. And yet, it was my first “real” job after the University.

Somehow throughout all the commencement speeches during graduation, throughout all the rallying of motivational education, and the long, arduous slog of toil and yawndom, through papers and textbooks, someone forgot to tell me that in the future it was both physically and economically possible to have a job that allows you to sleep in til 11 everyday. And this I did, well, maybe not every single day, but it certainly had got into a habit.
I make no pretenses. I try not to pretend what I can never be. I will admit, just in case you have made the mistake in assuming me to be one…but, I am not a snob of ambition. A snob of free time? Why, Yes,...of leisure, of tomfoolery and horseplay….with these I turn my nose, (fairly easy when it is resting on a pillow,) up at the rest of the productive world. And instead of going about my business, I aptly forge ahead with all various "businesses" and curiosities and adventures in the world. Seeing, thinking, experiencing alot. But not getting alot done. Some people call it procrastination. I term it motivational brainstorming or just plain soul-searching.

There was this one time that I asked my boss permission if I could take off a month from work and go to Italy. It being the slow time of the year, he said, “Yes.” So I did what any raving traveler full of admiration for high art, inspiring history, and damn good ice cream would do, I went to Italy.

Still another time, I left my job for 4 months. Call it bachelor-cowboy leave if you will.(Equivalent to a maternity leave;what I'll never get to experience). And I moved to New Zealand. I told my boss that I was to be gone a little while without any specificity in regards to when I'll back. He said it was okay. In my head, what was to be an entire year of bachelor leave, of roving manhood and feats of masculine island-tromping, I came back early soon after a car wreck. I decided that working for a job that required little motivational incentive other than taking road trips and folding a few T-shirts was in my best interest, was the best policy as far as goals in life or lack thereof, and the caged reality of this world with its motto. -Man must work for food. And if this is the sad truth, than going on road trips and calling stores whenever I wanted to, was better than breaking my back picking kiwifruit. No matter the location.

I called up my boss from this tiny island not far from Auckland, an island known through the Kiwi lands for its exquisite wine..though tiny it was. And my boss had been there. And all he remarked on was how there was this really good Irish pub nearby. I asked him if he still needed me. He was very excited and said of course. So I told him I would be making my way back home. I had simply to buy a plane ticket, stop for a week in Fiji, that sort of thing. Didn't tell a soul, I was coming home. Surprised everyone including my mother.

But hands down, the most slack that I was given. Was when I thought I could take a 2 month trip to Europe without my boss knowing about it. You know, 2 months to do the essentials...run with the bulls in Pamplona, Participate in the world's largest food fight, go on an ancient medieval pilgrimage, visit the Guinness Brewery, and kiss the Blarney Stone. You know all the stuff you can possibly squeeze into on a vacation to Spain and Ireland. I thought why bother with all the formalities of calling my boss in Vegas, all that bothersome red tape. Just buy a plane ticket and go. It wasn't til I was in Ireland that I checked my messages and found out that it was very important that I be in Mobile, AL in a week. Yikes. So I had to scratch the month long hike and pilgrimage in Northern Spain. I called our secretary, and told her that it was no problem. They never found out that I was making the call from an internet cafe in Cork, Ireland. Nor that that the "no problem" meant buying another round trip ticket (I wanted to come back to Europe for the Tomato Festival in Spain, you see) nor that the "no problem" was a cumbersome travail through 3 countries Ireland, France, and Spain, just to come back to Mobile, Alabama to set up a dad-gum T-shirt display rack on time. But I came back to Alabama and called off a life-changing spiritual pilgrimage to the cathedral where St. Thomas' bones are buried. For I am a good employee.

Maybe 5 months after this incident, it is the slow season, and I am in the Portland area visiting friends for 3 weeks. I decide to check on some stores in this area. You know, peak my head in the door. Do my job. When I found out that there was previously somebody else going around doing the same thing. It just so happened that a group from my company was up in the area checking on things. So I got this call from our secretary and she asked me if I was in the Oregon/Washington area for they too had heard about some long haired blonde guy going around the stores asking about shirts. I was in the wrong, for I had stepped into another's territory. My territory being the Southeast portion of the US, or actually the entire East. The Northwest was another's. I don't know if my boss was really peeved about it. I just knew by this time the economy was taking its toll on our company's expenses. And I was working less and less. Eventually, they only called me when they needed me. And The last time was a year ago. Hence, why I left a fairly interesting job and moved to Korea. Where I go to work everyday at the same time. It's not bad, but sometimes, in between pouting 6 year olds and story books, I think back to a time when I pretty much did whatever I wanted to. I think those days of frolicsome youth are over with. Spent. Gone like the US economy. Fitzgerald was always harkening back to a Gilded age. Perhaps that was my Gilded Age, not of wealth or luxury, but of carefree days, remarkable freedom, perhaps, waste as well.

An Illusory Romance with my Illusory Girlfriend in a Buddhist Monastery

2011-05-15T20:53:00.000-07:00

I saw her in the little office of the Monastery, where the few workers will sit on the floor at their computers. The rain was pelting the temple grounds creating this gravelly mud, and this misty haze fell upon the dragon gargoyles on the roofs, fell on the fir trees that ricochets the echoes of Buddhist chants, that falls on enlightenment, whatever that might be.

But I saw her smiling through the doors in between the dripping of the rain. This was not far from a large stone fountain that bubbled up mountain stream water where liberated folk fetch water from the well.

She had a smile that cut mantras in half, that severed ascetics from their starvation, that for a second made us think that life wasn't about suffering. So, as I sauntered by, I peered in, and was met by her gleaming eyes, and she invited me to come in the little room, and sit on the floor with her mother and this monk. She was eating these little cakes that I can't remember what they are called in Korean. I just recall telling everyone that it in Russian, it is what they call "peroshki" I told this to the Templestay worker, a nice kind man that I really wish I could remember his name. And who began to act as a translator, for I quickly saw that this girl and everyone else there didn't speak a bit of English.

There was this monk in full robes sitting on the floor nearby at a little table pouring tea for everyone. His shaven head wanting to shine with the reflection of the sun that wasn't there. He was a young monk, probably younger than me. And I saw that he was entertaining them, or they were entertaining him. Just then, an old man, the father walks in and sits on the ground. The girl speaks something to him, and it was announced to me that she had told her father that I was her boyfriend in jest. All that I could think to respond was a flippant, "Please don't get my hopes up." But I wonder if it was translated properly.

If you understand Korean culture, what little bit I know, you will understand how comical that is. For I know, a handful of foreigners here who have dated Korean girls for years, and all of them contend that the Korean girls never, never introduce them to their parents. As open and affable as Koreans are, I think the older generation is not too keen on the daughters dating foreigners. Especially licentious ambassadors of the anything-goes West.

The old man, this father, sat crossed legged on the floor, his back to us, as though he didn't approve. As though, the situation was serious. Meanwhile, I was trying to converse with this girl, that I couldn't even speak to, that through the gulf of language, of centuries and culture, of ill-fated timing, that I couldn't touch, nor reach.

Through the interpreter she said that it was okay, that she could rely on reading my expressions. But when I tried talking to her, there were just these 2 eyes that scattered light with the confusion, and made understanding impossible.

After that, I saw her around the temple with her family. She knew all the chants precisely. And I liked the way, she shared her umbrella with her mother. But other than that, our interactions were very limited. I learned her English name was Rose. And whenever we were in a meditational ceremony, I could feel her entering the room.
I left the monastery, without saying goodbye, crammed on a bus, as it sloshed through the rain puddles, Even though, the Templestay guy told me that she was interested in me, I couldn't ever think that she was serious. And how could I be serious? I relayed a message to this Templestay guy to tell Rose, yes, like a freaking middleschooler. Something along the lines of, "I really wish you spoke English. You are very beautiful. You distract me and probably all the monks here."

It seems one of the things I found out from that weekend, that I am bent on one illusion after another. Intent on mirage attachments, not just her, which leads as all these monks would agree, to a very addicting sense of suffering. A ridiculous, comic suffering almost. But nevertheless, a suffering.

My Turn on the Drum

2011-05-15T01:10:00.000-07:00

Eventually, I was allowed to strike the drum as well.

Marching in the Parade

2011-05-11T06:58:00.000-07:00

Because I had my own lotus lantern, which I made earlier that day, I could march in the parade. I didn't realize that til the very end.

Dancing at the Lotus Lantern Festival

2011-05-11T06:03:00.000-07:00

This was after the Lotus Lantern Festival in front of a Buddhist Temple, these musicians were playing and people were dancing. I got swept into it too.

Creating Little Artists

2011-05-02T19:52:00.000-07:00

Now there was this auction a few weeks ago, back home, before the wild rampage of the tornado, in a place and with people I hold dear. The auction was to benefit a charity work in Honduras. And it is very common at this auction to put up any skill, or any thing, really. A talent or an idea that can be auctioned off, and you can place a bid...all proceeds help to support another idea, where some of these folks go and build houses for the impoverished people of Honduras. And that's one of the loveliest things about this community, each brings to it, something...whether a skill, or an idea, a service, whatever, and nothing is despised. And the things you think are worth something maybe aren't so much, while the things that are little or subtle, they can be worth much more. You never know. All are included. And things can be flipped in a cyclone of worth, letting us know, perhaps, what's really important.

Well, I'm away from this auction hall that takes place every year, and I couldn't help but think that I had a small army of Korean children at my command. So maybe I first thought up the idea as a sort of joke. Well, at least a cute thought. But I offered my auction far across the distant seas, in the form of a bunch of scintillating artwork from a mass of Korean kindergarteners, that the winner of the bid could hang on their fridge, better yet, entirely cover their fridge, and even submerge their whole kitchen in crayon creations from an elementary school in South Korea.

I really didn't expect much. But then I got wind that the winner of the bid was one of the wealthier people of the community, a personality that from all appearances, a practical minded individual, not big on the messy doodlings of children. But he won the bid, and now, all these works were to go to him, and I had no idea how much the bid was for. It worried me. For what I thought would only draw a few dollars and some cute laughter. Now I wasn't so sure.

Ontop of that, I had another difficulty. For Asian children are very big on imitation. They like to copy and duplicate. And they are spectacularly talented in that area. Some of them have supreme artistic craftmanship. But if I just told them to draw anything, whatever they felt. Maybe one or two would be innovators, the rest would follow suit and I would have 50 drawings of a house with maybe Pokemon beside a tree. I didn't want that. I had to orchestrate diversity. Which is a funny sentence to write, much less do. I've already done what I could in encouraging originality. But its something that I've noticed that I'll hit walls with. So I needed a plan.

There is this game that I've played with some of my classes. Its made up of these cards. Half of them have written on them names of nouns like "A Happy Clown" or "The Big Dinosaur". And the other half of them have verbs and another noun. Like "Wears a Funny Hat" or "Likes to Eat Flowers." Now, typically, for you grammarians, the Subject cards had the appropriate match in the Direct Object cards. For instance..."The Pig" matches "Plays in the Mud". Or "His Grandpa" goes with "Drives an Old Car." But I never played this game with them correctly. I always wanted them to think outside the box. I'd switch it up. Makes things a bit fun. Why can't The Pig Drive an Old Car? And why can't His Grandpa Play in the Mud. I've had kids put their foot down and try to argue with me that these are incorrect and did not fit. But I'd stand my position, that in the world of imagination anything was possible. And because they are still children, it wouldn't take them long before they caught on and learned to dwell inside a world were such things happened. They began to make up wacky sentences too.

So with this art project, I passed out these cards that were all mixed up. And told them to draw whatever sentence they got. To give their work a lift from just an ordinary picture that they all had to draw, and definitely to make all their drawings different. So what was produced was a diverse set of highly surreal drawings or paintings of big dinosaurs playing soccer, mothers eating flowers, frogs wearing dresses, fat hippos shopping at the grocery store, babies driving old cars, happy clowns with 8 legs, Grandpas with very big teeth and so forth. And now, I just mailed them all off today. And somehow, I think they may rival Pollock or any other modern or postmodern artist. You could probably put the works up in a Museum and convince the masses that Picasso did them on his death bed and was his statement of his return to childhood.

My Ride in the Back of A Police Car; The Search for the House of Poets

2011-04-26T05:12:00.000-07:00

I had everything that would prelude a sublime quest. The sun on high, immaculate blue skies, the awakening of spring, a breeze in the air that painted everything with this frolicsome spirit, and an endless world city with easy train rails that trailed underneath it, spouting out the questing explorer at countless spots and stops. I spotted on the northeastern part of a map of the city Seoul this place, called the "Korean House of Poets" and I thought that if there was ever a place that I could possibly belong to it would be down past the gate, and across the threshold of whatever this meant. I tend to have this inclination in my spare time. Find some random, curious place full of wonder and go and step out into the streets and see if my footsteps can find it. But even more so if that place held some sort of personal draw to me. And this title did.

So, I hopped on a bus zipping into Seoul and then descended into the subways. And emerged out in the sunlight and hit the pavement walking down the same busy street seeing what was there. But it eluded me. It was a hidden, unattainable fortress of serenity among the high rise aparments and frantic traffic. Besides, all things poetic are unattainable. And I really didn't know what I was looking for exactly. It could be anything from a library, or an academy of writers, to a cemetery, the exalted patrons of the earth buried into the mountains. Or maybe it was a real house where furrowed-browed poets dwelled, their dishevelled hair gleaming in a sunbeam.

It could be a strange strand of a martial arts school full of dreamy-eyed fighters who compose haikus while they break boards with their feet. They are trained to slit open a man's, no, better yet, a woman's heart with only a feather quill. They sit on the edge of a stream, instead of meditating, they daydream and contemplate the depths of the universe. They climb up waterfalls and embark into the clouds where they, in stealth and in passion, fight back the mists and the darkness and steal the light from the stars and on returning they string a a few words together. -I hope they had some one to do the dishes, the laundry, and pay the bills for them.

My head was full of such themes, when i didn't notice if I passed it or not. I kept on looking where the map indicated where it should be. But no where. There was this ancient temple standing on a hill, but I searched it, it was vacant and used to be the sight of the Eastern entrance into the city of Seoul in the 1400s. I asked a number of people nearby but no one knew. And then I walked into the police station, I decided that if anyone knew, they would. And traveling in various places around the world, asking the police can be one of the stupidest things one can do. You never know where you'll wind up or what you'll lose. In Russia, you avoid the police at all costs.

But no one in this police office could tell me where this place was located. But it confounded them. There were 4 officers in there, poring over maps, consulting who knows who on the phone. I think it gave them something to do, or they felt it a challenge of sorts. Just then 2 of them walked outside and motioned over to their car, and asked through mannerisms if I wanted to take a ride while they looked for this nebulous "House of Poets". Or at least, I reckoned that was what they meant.

They opened the back door for me and didn't get me that spill about watching my head. The first thing, I noticed was that there was no cage that seperated me from their throats. Then I noticed a part of an umbrella that I could easily get my hands on, handcuffed or not, and probably bust out the back window with. It made me think that Seoul's not all that dangerous. Like 10,000 Mayberrys stacked ontop of each other.

And then we cruised through these backroads, down these narrow streets almost alleywaus that winded up hills around all the apartment buildings. One of there names was "Moon" and the other was "Yun". Moon was about my age. He had a whistle around his neck. Yun was a bit older. Maybe middle-aged. They both knew a few more English words than I knew Korean. But communication was nearly impossible. I was having a thrilling time. And I hoped it lasted longer than just a short ride. I also, had this secret wish that they'd get some crazy call and they'd have to carry me with them as they chased down some criminal. But for the meantime, they'd turn at certain roads and I had no idea where we were.

Eventually, they came to another little police officer post. A door leading into a tiny office. One of them got out and went in, I guess to ask them about this place. But, I began to think that maybe there was something more in their ultra nice gesture of being both a taxi service and a tour guide for me. I think that they got some kind of kick out of driving a Westerner in the back of their car. It was as though they were showing me off. You know, they drove past this university area where all the students were walking about, their books in hand, and I could've swore that they slowed down. Okay maybe so as not to hit anybody, but also because they wanted to be a spectacle. You know get people talking. "Hey, did you see that blonde dude in the back of the police car. I wonder what he did. That's the way of our policemen. Nothing gets past them. Not even those with English speaking, main world-power passports."

And perhaps, the stop in front of the other police station was not for directions, maybe it was to brag to the other branch. The one that walked in, thrusts out his chest and scratches himself, "Boys, quit picking your nose and see what we picked up over in OUR jurisdiction. Yep, caught him embezzling 1.2 million dollars cash, he had 3 suitcases of cocaine in the trunk of his car; he was smuggling a Russian prostitute who is supposedly related to Putin. He had bodyguards all around him. 5 of them each about 300 pounds. But they were easily handled. Got a bruise on my shoulder, that's all. So what have you guys been up to? Eating donuts I see."

It was funny, when driving by people. I looked at them pleasantly. As though, we were all going on a picnic. I don't know what people thought. And not too long after riding around, we found the spot. There was this big black gate with some sort of house behind it. The both of them got out and I tried to follow only to be reminded that I was in the backseat of a police car; there were no handles on the inside of the backdoors. So one of the cops assisted me. The "House of Poets" was a museum for Korean poets. But it was closed on the weekend. It looked sort of stuffy and narrowly pedantic on the other side; not how I imagined it, of course. One of the cops pounded on the big black gate for me. But no one answered. Some one was in the middle of writing a couplet or maybe doing something tragic like sticking one's head in the oven to open the door.

The policemen then offered me a ride back to their station, which I was hoping they would for I was so zigzagged back from where I knew where I was at, that I would've been lost if left there. So we rode back and with a bunch of "Kamsa Hamnidas" and bowing I left them, deeming the Korean police to be the nicest in the world.

Finding a Church for Easter: A Stand-Off with a Priest

2011-04-24T14:13:00.000-07:00

It was a full day. Saturday it was. Everything was sparking forth vibrancy. The ethereal sky and the kinetic, bustling city of Seoul that beckoned me. I even had vibrant dreams the night before and wrote them all down in a notebook. 5 full pages they were. Everything seemed awake and dazzling. I made it to the heart of the city to search for something and ended up going for a ride in a police car, (but i'll relate this story later) for now, I'll talk about after this particular day had passed and night had set in, my wanderings for the day, up ancient fortress walls, into frenzied art university alleyways and such, were at a close, and i made it to Mass at a Catholic University. It was 8 o clock in the evening and the thinking was that I would go to an ancient, high church for Easter. At first, I thought I'll go to an Orthodox service. But, my explorations of the city had me near this Catholic college, so I thought, I'll just go here.

I think I was the only foreigner packed in there. I towered above a bunch of the short parishioners. All the Koreans were crammed in their seats. Holding candles for the service. Older women wearing white shawls on their heads, which I thought was more Orthodox than Catholic. It was interesting being in a Catholic church where probably a large portion of them had been converts. I mean, I guess...that's the case. Because Christianity is still relatively new here. Such a phenomena is not too uncommon with Protestants. But with Catholics, I don't think I've been anywhere where whole generations of the parish were not Catholic that stretch back probably centuries into ancestors marriages and dusty vaults.

Anyways, I sat through the service. Staring at the ceiling, this church didn't have the majestic roof scaling up into space like alot of cathedrals. It was high, but flat with no decorations. But still, there was an air of importance or grandeur even. The singing from the chorus bordered on the sublime. And let me admit, that even though I didn't understand hardly a word, I wasn't as bored as I have been sitting through other Catholic masses. There was something, a sort of presence of something very peaceful.

I have this friend, a sort of mentor who, is a Benedictine. And I guess, i sort of think that since he often tells me about Catholicism and I've accompanied him on trips to this monastery where we've prayed with the monks, I guess, I thought that I was now "in" with the whole Catholic thing. I once asked my friend about a Protestant taking the Eucharist and he said its not really allowed. But for some reason, this point and discussion of ours seemed sort of foggy. At least the recollection, or the conviction of it wasnt strong enough for me to find fault with taking Mass with a bunch of Catholics. So, when I went forward in the procession to take of the Body, my conscience was sure in its deliberation. And then the priest suprised me, right after handing me the wafer, he asks, "Are you a Baptist?". I think I just nodded. Because I thought he was talking to me in Korean or maybe Latin, and I just thought maybe the "bless, my son" or whatever it is that they say sounded like, "Are you a Baptist?" So I slightly bowed, (the custom here for respect) as though i was thanking him for the Bread. But he immediately ripped the wafer out of my hand and said again, "Are you a Baptist? I uttered back "No! No!" and I took the wafer. I know. I know. It was instinct and I wasn't thinking. Besides all these people were standing in line behind me. I was standing in front of the whole church, near the little nuns that sat right there probably watching the whole thing. It wasn't until I was in the middle of stammering out that I am not a Baptist, that I realized what he meant. -That he didn't think that a Protestant should take of the Eucharist.

Technically, I told the truth. I am not a Baptist. But, why doesn't he ask what he meant? "Are you Prostestant?" or better yet, "Are you Catholic?" But I had the Bread, so I just ate it and walked out of the Church. Feeling, like maybe I shouldn't be here if its such a big deal. So, I didn't take the Blood. And then I got to thinking, and I don't know if I should feel ashamed of what happened or annoyed with him. I mean, what if I was holding the chalice at my home church in Birmingham, AL and some short, olive-skinned man with a big nose wanted to take Communion, or just a Mexican came in and I said, "Are you Catholic?" and I jerked the Chalice away from his lips? Or what if some rough looking dude with skull tats all over his arms and a heavy metal T-shirt came in and I did the same, but asked, "Are you a Satanist?" I suppose, I could interrogate everyone, "Are you an agnostic? Are you sure about that?" Of course, with this priest his hunch was heading in the right direction. I am not a Catholic. But he didn't know that. I mean, what if I were Catholic, for all he knew I could've been a German one, or Irish, or perhaps Polish. What then? If he asked, "Are you Catholic?" What? You have to be short and have darker skin to be Catholic? I think I would've been offended. I'm sorry, I just don't feel all that convicted that me and another Christian have to agree full-heartedly on the issue of transubstantiation to share Communion with each another. So I left sort of put out about the whole experience. I wrote my friend about it, he said that his opinion was that I was in the wrong, and then mentioned among many things, something about George Washington not taking the Communion with the Church of England because he had fought a war with its head the King of England. Anyways, I left and I don't think I'll go back to a Mass any time soon seeing how I'm not one of them.

Getting Pins and Needles Stuck in Me: My Experience with Acupuncture

2011-04-21T06:41:00.000-07:00

Today, I went to this Chinese Medicine Clinic or Hospital as they call it. They deal in holistic healing and most of all, what I couldn't wait to try, acupuncture. Yes, where they stick in a bunch of needles in you, and somehow through feeling like an intruder into a porcupine cage, you become healed. I do not know how this process works. And I guess there are plenty of skeptics out there. But I do know that this practice has been around for thousands of years and the concept is quite common over here. And cheap. So, I thought to get my sinuses and my nasty cough healed through pretending, for a brief 15 minutes, to be a pin cushion.

There's this lady that works as a receptionist for my school, and I was told to ask her about the phenomena for I heard that she was a regular customer of this ancient practice. I didn't need to give her any secret codes nor handshakes, I just stressed my interest. And today, she told me in broken English that she will take me today after school. I said okay. I hardly know this lady. Our relationship has been limited to her signifying to me when the downstairs coffee machine is not working. I think her name is Mrs. Ming. But I trust her. And off we went.

Now, I've had something like a cold almost the full time that I've been here. And that's been over a month now. Coughing in the middle of class making the kids think that I could keel over and die any minute. I fill my waste basket full of kleenexes. I consume packages of cough candy per week. So you can bet, I am willing to try a good deal of anything. But also, I am very curious about this whole needle in the body business. And probably even if I didn't have any symptoms, I'd secretly want to get some kind of ailment so that I could go and try it out.

We arrived in a normal doctor's office. The receptionist got my information, through the help of Mrs. Ming. And then we walk back to the doctor's main office. Tons of books on the shelf, and this intelligent, bespeckled man in a lab coat greeted me. Mrs. Ming tells him my symptoms. I notice this ancient tome opened up on his desk. Maybe it was some talisman of magical properties. But he motioned for me to step over to a little bed and he stuck some modern metallic thing up my nose. It was some sort of camera for he took pictures of what was going on inside my nostrils that showed up on this large screen, as though Mrs. Ming and anyone else out in the lobby peeking in the room would care to see.

Next, he told me to go in the back and that's where the real treatment began. They told me to take off my socks and shoes and lay on this firm, heated bed. I could feel the heat surround my body, then they placed rolled up towels under my knees to elevate them a bit. Next, they rubbed, i think it was alchohol on certain points on my body. And that's when they broke out the needles.

Was I nervous? Yes, a little. I was told to sit as still as possible. And whenever anyone is going to stick needles in me, I always try to think about something else. I never, never think about what all could possibly go wrong. It's only if I do that I get scared. Why, in a normal doctor's office, have you ever thought that all it takes is just one slight centimeter off and the wrong artery is punctured and all of a sudden blood is spurting all over the place. Yes, its thoughts like those that I try desperately to block out when needles are concerned.

But with acupuncture needles, they are very, very small. I barely felt them inserted. They (the doctor and his nurse who was the receptionist also) placed two on my outer knees and then two more near my elbows. And then, they got dangerous. They approached my face. Placing two right below where a unibrow would sit if I had one. I tried to fight with all my might to get any images of needles stabbing an eyeball out of my mind. All this, to keep from wincing. Then, they pierced out from my nose parallel to my nostrils, though towards my cheekbones. And finally, two more were speared where my lips raise with a smile or a smirk.

They put this hot lamp on me and told me to sit as still as possible for the next 15 minutes. They covered my eyes with cloth and walked out of the room and I lay there, experiencing those notorious waiting periods that always seem like hours. One of my legs was going to sleep and I didn't want to move lest the whole thing should be messed up.

Eventually, they came back and took all the needles back out and I was told I could go. That was it. I paid the doctor's bill. But it wasn't as cheap as I initially thought. Because, for some reason, I don't have my insurance card just yet. I should have it very soon, though. So the price which was supposed to be only about 5 bucks. Was more like 30. Which is still alot cheaper than anything whether western or holistic, whether legit or quackery, in the states. So I guess I am content. The only problem is that they told me that with something so big and general as "allergies" they said that frequent visits are needed to make any headway. Like a few weeks of visits. Which normally would only cost about 5 dollars per consulation. So, I'm sorta waiting for my insurance card to be cleared, for I'm sure not paying 30$ a day for this. But we'll see how it goes. As for now, I hope they took all my needles out, what if they forgot and I'm walking around with this large pin sticking out of my face.

First Exploration of the City; Involving Pop Singers, Superstars, Old Men, and Girls

2011-04-17T05:32:00.001-07:00

I was here for a month, and quite opposite of my nature, I went without stretching my legs a bit and going for a random, hapless roam through the city. I pretty much would just follow the other Western teachers on the weekend, going where they go, getting my feet just a little wet, more from spilled beer (not from me) than from unknown waters.

So this weekend, I hopped on a bus that took me into the city, until I made it to a Metro and from there rode underground and emerged out from the ground in the heart of the city. I decided to start my year of wild city ramblings in the center. So, to City Hall I went. And the first thing, I noticed was this large area off in the distance with these little white pavilions set far below the towering skyscrapers above. Some type of music was playing in the city with a stage and all these people crowded around. So, I set my curious footsteps aimed in that direction. 2 people stood on stage holding mics as some sort of MCs..cracking jokes and making important declarations. But it all being in Korean, I didn't know what it was about.
I ambled over to one of the white tents where they were giving free bottles of water. And asked the girls at the booth what was going on. One of them answered that it was a benefit concert for the Handicapped.

This older man in a tweed blazer overheard me and strikes up a conversation with me, asking me where I was from and if I was single. Then he motions at all 3 of these girls and tells me that I had my pick for a girlfriend. This was right in front of them and of course, they just laughed. Then he mentions, "You know, I have a daughter."..... "Really?" I asked. Mainly because, what else do you say in such circumstances. But also because feigning an interest in marriage deals have lead to some very interesting cultural experiences for me in the past.

Then this old Mr. Tweed suit, smiled with a grin, "No, I'm only kidding." and I smiled back and gave a slight bow, which is a sign of respect here, and said, "I am too." We went on talking about something else and I in this half-bantering, playful jibe made the comment about him wearing such a toasty-looking tweed coat on such a warm day. The girls who were all overhearing the conversation laughed. This laughter caught me a little off guard. I am catching the hint that utmost respect is paid to the elderly here and maybe I was slightly going over the barrier by lightly tugging on his lapel and criticizing humorously what this elderly man was wearing. He said something about him being an older gentleman and he's supposed to dress up like this. I, on the other hand, can wear whatever I wanted. "Plus," he added, "it'll probably get cold tonight." Which is a reality I'm getting to know all too well.

Just then, a band began to play. And one of the girls got all excited. And they explained to me that it was the winner of the Korean version of American Idol. I got curious so I stepped towards the small concert, and watched as this scarecrow of a Korean emerged on stage surrounded by this frolicsome boy band. They were Nsync incarnated and hip hopped about the stage, every now and then the lead singer would gesticulate with his hands, clutching his heart as though he was in some ecstatic passion. The crowd, mostly girls would yell. 2 of the girls from the pavillion came over and stood beside me as we watched. We had light, sporadic conversation. I could tell it, the conversation, that is, was supposed to go in a certain direction, that is with the exchange of phone numbers or such and I kept trying to explain to one of the girls what an undertaker was. Mainly, because the coat that this Korean Idol singer, I can't remember his name, was wearing made him look like an undertaker while sweeping the stage and the audience with his song and moves.

After this, another band got up. This time, it was a famous Korean band that's been around for 15 years. They were more of a rock/alternative group. The talkative girl told me that their name when translated into English meant "No Brain" or something like that. All during these performances, a lone man danced in the middle of the big space between the seats and the stage. He danced crazily and he danced good, all the while he danced, he convinced those that looked on that he was out of his mind. Some sort of madman getting his groove on all by himself. He kept ripping his shirt off accompanying it all his moves. And then putting it back on again. I found myself more entertained watching him than all the other stars. I think half the crowd did too. And secretly, even though he was a source of ridicule for those all around, I think I half wanted to be doing what he was doing. The girls told me that they had to go and fill out their forms for their volunteering, so I departed.

Not more than 50 yards from this spot, another spectacle was taking place. Near the Cheonggyecheon, a nice little stream flowing in the middle of the northern part of the city, a music video was being filmed in the vibrant sunlight, with all the throngs of people ambling here and there. It was this pretty girl and guy, they were singing hip hop in English as some kind of duo with the skyscrapers of Seoul behind them embroidered by the blue sky. I got the tail end of the shoot. After they ended, a group of people that were not Oriental and not White, mobbed the guy with the shades getting pictures with him. It turns out that the guy was some huge star in Malaysia. The girl sat in her star chair and watched these fans admire this guy. I liked to think that I read on her face, a diva look of, "Why, isn't anybody rushing to get pictures with me."

I followed this river down as the night fell upon the city, and the lights woke up. About the only thing else I saw, worth noting before I made my long commute back to Suji was this fight that took place. I only know about it for rambling through these busy alleys and shopping lanes, I followed a policeman who was in a hurry. And down in a basement where they had this Korean restaurant some old man was in a fury yelling berserk and throwing things. I don't know what it was about. I just know that this old man and an old lady were escorted in the back of this police car out of the lights of the lanes. About this time I headed back.

Turning Rabbit; How Two of My Co-Workers Ran Away

2011-04-11T21:26:00.000-07:00

It took everyone by surprise, it certainly was not on my radar. But yesterday for lunch, two of my co-workers, fellow teachers of mine, never returned to their classes. At first, I thought that something maybe tragic had happened, but as I talked to other teachers and the pieces were put together it appears that they with bags in hand, and plane tickets in their pockets fled, they high-tailed it. Flew the coop. Went on the lam. Broke free. Turned Rabbit. Two flew over the Cuckoos Nest, and probably by now they are back in Canada. And they didn't tell a soul that they were leaving.

They were a Canadian couple from Ontario. Ari, the guy who was almost in that bar fight that I wrote about here. http://theruskie.blogspot.com/2011/04/almost-fight.html And his girlfriend Sarah, were here for around half a year. In the past month, I worked at the same school as they. We'd catch the same bus in the mornings, eat lunch together, hail taxis home, and in general, just hang out with the rest of the western teachers at the Villa. But as of yesterday, that's all changed. They're gone. Shaking the dust off of their shoes (that they can probably now wear indoors.) and they'll probably both never use chopsticks again.

Hired as foreign teachers, we sign a one year contract with a school. In return, we are given an apartment to live in and they buy our plane tickets from our homes to Korea, and, of course, while here, we're given a salary. It's a pretty sweet deal. Not a fortune. But not a bad deal. In a definite way, you are committed to one year. If you don't like teaching or living in Korea after that one year, then you can leave. But if you do enjoy it, you can sign on for another year. That simple. If you absolutely detest it all. Then, tough. Man up. Its only a year. You'll get out alive. You should have some money in the bank afterwards, and you'll probably grow from the experience. And, at least, you'll have some stories.

However, there are cases, at some Haegwons (private schools) in South Korea where the pay is shoddy, and you are cheated out of either money or time. They've been known to heap up more work upon you than you originally signed up for. So people cutting out early, is not unheard under such circumstances. Which I think is understandable. But with our haegwon, from what I've heard, comparing it to other schools as far as pay, vacation time, work load, and administation, we're kinda lucky. And I don't see why anyone would just up and leave, unless of a family emergency or some such thing. Which could be the case. But I doubt it.

I think its determined that this couple cut out because, well, like so many of our generation, they are discontent with the idea of working. And perhaps homesickness had a thing to do with it. In fact, 6 months,(about the length of time they've been here), is the exact time that culture shock begins to set in, and a person begins to see this new culture they are apart without all the freshness and novelty. A sense of disgust sets in and you are tired of every pecularity of a certain culture. It took me a year of living in Russia, til I felt like I had it. I hopped on a train to Finland, and then a boat to Sweden. But then I came back. And that is the main point. I took a weekend getaway, but I came back to what I was committed to.

As for these 2 teachers, maybe culture shock was the case. Who can really know. They left their explanations as empty and perplexed as their classrooms. I knew that Ari, liked to complain alot about the school and the fact that he had to keep returning to it every Monday. He was mainly living for the weekends here, where he could drink his beer and stream basketball games. He hated Mondays with a passion, and loved Friday afternoons with the same fervour. I just thought his complaints were sort of normal for people working during the work week. I also don't think Ari was into the whole teaching thing. While Sarah, his girlfriend was a bit more into teaching. I actually think she was an education major. She had this appropriate teacher's voice blaring in the adjacent room next to my room. But I think that maybe Sarah, was having a hard time living in Korea. She never struck me as the traveler's type. Some people are adaptable and others aren't. I don't think she was. Everyday for lunch, she never wanted to eat at the cafeteria. Which was free for us; they'd go to this same kimbop shop and pay for the same exact food everyday. I think it was just that she was picky and longed for familiarity. If there was a fluke day, that they did eat at the school. She never got a plate, but ate stale crackers instead.

So now putting both these two together, a guy who may've enjoyed living here but detested the work, and a girl that probably liked teaching but couldn't hack the difference of her surroundings. The pieces fit exactly were they had something to be unhappy about, and they talked secretly of getting out, I guess.

All this is speculation, of course. But what I do know...is that I have a bunch of extra students heaped on me, for a short while, because of the immaturity of these two. And I don't doubt that the Korean administration and teachers probably feel and naturally suspect that any of us, other foreign teachers, could just up and leave and therefore we can't be trusted and are probably, as Western kids, stamped as spoiled brats.

Oh well...I wish the both of them good luck in whereever they wind up, and in whatever they do. They were getting to be friends of mine. But if someone like me feels sort of embarrassed because of another's flakiness, it must be something.

The World and Fried Chicken

2011-04-10T21:42:00.000-07:00

Somewhere outside the familiar contours of my homeland . Far, far from my origin. Tucked inside this distant location where I had escaped everything that was familiar to me. I wasn't necessarily in the epitome of the East, Why, I sat in a pub surrounded at a table by South Africans, I surely wasn't home. But then, on the radio, as I held my mug, blasting over the radio, the song "A Little Bit of Chicken Fried" played. And like, a surreal dream, almost as though I was having a flashback, a number of people began to sing along, and sing louder when they got to the words "Chicken Fried". I had to do a double take. I thought the main places where you'd hear this song, was only in Southern bars with Lynyrd Skynrd posters hanging on the wall, or in bowling alleys where guys name Gus shined their bowling balls with snuff. Now, I have heard "Sweet Home Alabama" in many diverse countries, even dancing along with it. But this was different. And that bubble that I kept my home inside, while I tried to float outside it. That bubble had burst.

Fried Chicken has its lure. I could write about how the hamburger has marched its Golden Arched Empire all over the world. And how all of youth, in every corner of the world crave pizzas on Friday nights. -But the love of fried chicken is something a bit more close to home. It's truly southern.

And Fried Chicken is everywhere here in Korea. They have such a strange idea of it. For some reason, these fried chicken hubs line the streets but they usually only open at night. As though, it is unseemly to indulge in the pleasure of eating fried chicken during the sober, righteous hours of the day. I guess, they're saying that fried chicken is the sort of food that you eat when you are drunk, or dining out with prostitutes, or want to talk about cocaine deals. I don't know. And then the prices are highly, highly curious. Most Korean meals here you can eat a king's feast for around 5 dollars. But these chicken places charge like $15. Maybe there's something else included. Maybe there's a rival place to Church's Chicken. Its called Brothel's Chicken.

Though, it is true. They don't just sell Chicken. They advertise chicken and beer. Many places have a picture of a hen holding a mug of beer. There's a place directly across the street from my apartment, its called "Chicken and Joy". Why that place is never packed full with such a claim, I do not know.

Such cravings have not fully possessed me just yet. I just pass by, glancing at the prices and what kind of deals they have...that is until that insatiable southern appetite takes hold of me, and I have to get my next fix. Truly, there is nothing more southern about me than my stomach. Everything else could be mistaken for somewhere else. But my belly has the wiring of a true southerner.

I remember living in New Zealand. I had been there for over a month content with their meat pies and fish and chips. I found myself working on an orchard and the days I had off, I would hitch-hike to the the nearest town where I'd indulge that long lost love, fried chicken. I told this co-laborour, this Scottish guy about it, describing our southern cuisine in detail while doing our day's labour of picking fruit off of tiny trees, and before long we both were hitchhiking to get some of this fried chicken.

But I shall not sing the praises of the Colonel. I can't remember the last time I had KFC. But I do remember that in astonishment, and perhaps horror, it was when I witnessed that on the upper floor of KFC in Cairo and out the glass window you could see the Sphinx and the great pyramids. The most mysterious and enduring constructions of humanity that has cheated time and epic history, and yet a blasted KFC is perched next to this Necropolis, City of the Dead. Ozymandias' somber inscription ends with a question of whether one should choose dark or white meat.

But there are KFC's the whole world over. As for me, I never got over what my brother told me when I was probably 8. Something about a fried rat being found at the bottom of a bucket. Either these cultures don't care, or truth be told, they may enjoy the fried rat more. Who knows.

No, but I am a fool for Popeye's. In fact, I was certain that I saw a Popeye's Chicken here in Suji City, as I was riding on the back of a motorcyle one cold night. It could've been a mirage. But I swore I saw a Popeye's Chicken. I asked some of the other western teachers here. And they didn't know what I was talking about. So, just the other day. I ventured out on my own quest to find this Popeye's Chicken. I walked all the way to downtown Suji and there, without much effort, I found Popeye with that strange grin on his face. And, of course, a can of spinach clutched in his gargantuan arms. My eyes twinkled with delight. Dreaming of not just the fried chicken, but the biscuits.

But it was not to be. The place was closed down. In fact, I don't think it was really THE Popeye's Chicken from the US. I think the previous owners just made it a knock off version. Everything looked so run down. How else could you explain the fact that it was closed? So, I continued to peek into all these chicken and beer joints. Their prices are two high. But I don't know. It is quite the mystery.

A Korean Female has Caught My Eye, but she....

2011-04-05T21:47:00.000-07:00

...happens to speak, as far as I know, hardly a lick of English. (Not that the whole language barrier has stopped things from accelerating in the past). She's one of the Korean teachers here. The way they do the classes here is that they have Korean teachers sit in on the classes while we teach. They don't instruct, and they hardly intervene. Its as though they are observing our teaching, but they're really observing the children and marking what the students do or don't do. All the while, its as though, they're not really there. Phantom teachers, they could be called.

Well, there's this one teacher who sits like a ghost..full of terrible charm and frightening radiance. I noticed her the first day. We accidentally touched when we both were reaching for the doorknob. And held hands for like 2 seconds. Or more like a quarter of a second. But regardless it was as though we held hands. Just multiply it by 20 and we were like a couple. That was when we first met. Some days she sits in my room, and other days she is off in another hall. Some days, I catch her glancing at my schedule and teaching sheets and I wonder what she's thinking, other days I catch her sleeping in class, and some days, I am in the middle of asking the kids to spell "Tuesday" or "jacket" and across the room, our eyes meet. Its my 2nd class of the day. Her class is adorable, though squirmy.

I do not know her name. One time, I asked the students what her name was when she was not in the class. And it was the most indecipherable string of syllables. And I soon forgot it within 5 seconds. Besides, the kids could've misunderstood what I was asking and were just giving me what the Korean word for "teacher" is.

Physically, her face is sort of wide. She has a little mouth and a little nose. But two dazzling lynx-like eyes set ontop of a firm set of cheekbones. When they fix themselves on me, and she's not asleep, I can't help but think, "My Goodness, she is so sexy." Her hair is not long. And she is quite thin, without giving one the impression from the start that she is thin. I think it's her wide face. Over all these traits combine and give her, strangely if stretching one's imagination, the exotic resemblance of a lioness. She has one of those melancholic, introverted demeanors. Sad faces can be so tantalizing. And it wasn't until 2 weeks into teaching that I realized that her little mouth could smile.

This was achieved by me. I was playing Simon Says with the children. That day, particularly, which happened to be April 1st, I was playing my own jokes on the Korean teachers by saying Simon says touch something black, and the only thing really black in the room is the skirt that the teacher is wearing. So this beserking mob of children would charge the teacher. With this specific teacher though, she smiled when I got them to surround her playing along with it. Can't say, that all the other teachers in the other classes did.

I know all the real objections, that I have very little idea of what her personality is like. And that I am only projecting things onto her because she is quiet and real communication is hindered. So she sits framed like a portrait of a ravishing girl hanging on the wall across the room, an artist's exotic idea of beauty melting into the distance. But not a real person. But one thing is certain,and one thing I do know...she likes children. And women that are good with children have a sway over me.

The only conversation, I had with her was when I was reporting an incident. We are to report all incidents when a student gets hurt. One kid threw a ball and hit Tommy in the eye and Tommy began crying. Because most of the Korean teacher's are not the best in English, and I'm certainly not a Korean dictionary. To tell them anything is a difficulty. Through the use of charades I mimicked the ball being hurled towards my face and the tears streaming from my eyes. She was sharp and understood what I was saying within seconds. (You should have seen the odds I was up against trying to explain to another Korean teacher when Jennifer had mooned Alex; I wasn't doing charades then.) But her quick comprehension, got me hoping that maybe she understands English better than the other Korean teachers.

And then the moment came when she spoke to me. That Casablanca moment, when fire and sky meet, where Juliet steps out on the balcony, It was when the students were getting ready to leave, and they were lined up near the door. She looks at me with those lynx-like eyes, splicing the shadows from the light with those sultry, beautiful slivers, and she, with a smile, utters the word,....."Potato." "Potato?" I question back. She sort of laughs and her mind reaches back trying to form the words, and she says it again, "Potato." "Oh, you want them to play hot potato tomorrow?" I ask. She shakes her head in negation, but still smiles. As they file out of the room, her meaning is still left unclear. And I'll be first to admit that there has been more than one night here just before I've drifted off to sleep that I've wrestled with the riddle, "Potato? Potato. I think there's a hidden meaning in that."

The Quest for a Good Shower; An Adventure with Lunch Ladies and Asian Men

2011-04-04T22:08:00.000-07:00

Dirt and grime, and just general sweat and the wear of the day, all have me run down, along with the muscles that I cannot relax without the nice, long application of warm water. All that I want is just a shower...a decent one, one that doesn't freeze me and one that doesn't burn me, and one that actually gets me wet.

You see, the problem with my shower reached a vexing pinnacle when I got mad at the already existing problem and ripped out the shower head in my bathroom. I set about Macgyvering a hose plugged into the sink. It doesn't fit exactly because I had to use some type of tape or adhesives to get this hose to stick on the water faucet. Water still leaks out everywhere. And this, alas, has me only bathing in a thin trickle with the same fluctuating moodswings of the water temperature that had me annoyed to begin with. But ontop of that, I end up squatting curled up in a little ball underneath my sink in order to take a shower. Insane. Well, here, the sinks are actually inside the entire shower room. But still..it is uncomfortable and everytime I take a bath it feels like I am positioned for a tornado drill.

So I thought to improvise. It is always the lack of necessity that get us to think outside the box, and well, I thought, I will just take a shower at the school. They have this pool in the basement, and a bathroom adjoined where some nice and lovely showers exist. Ah, I couldn't wait. In fact, so wonderful were the showers when I actually did sneak down there. That, I was beginning to rely on that. I took two of the most sublime showers down there... yes, secretly. For, I mean how weird is a teacher, a grown man, taking a shower at the elementary school where he works. I mean, what would you think if Mr. Rogers was caught skinny dipping in a children's pool? Similiar thing. Okay, not exactly. But close.

Now, there is this small kitchen where they cook meals for the teachers next to the swimming pool. Now the students have their cafeteria in another wing, but sometimes teachers come down and eat, and if they go to the bathroom, I figured they go in the bathroom exactly where the shower was. So, if I were to take a shower I had to be quick. I didn't want a teacher or a cook walking on me while, I am butt-naked covered in soap suds. These showers, are just corded showerheads that you pull off the wall and you bathe in the middle of the bathroom, there are no partitions or shower curtains. So, taking a shower in a bathroom that you don't even know if you are supposed to be in, is risky business. And everything, I mean everything, is definitely more of a risk if it involves nudity. As I've said before, I've successfully taken 2 showers in this bathroom, undetected because I've gone through clandestine measures and I am a master of stealth. There is no door that I can visibly close and lock. There are these glass doors that are on the outside of the hall that lead to the bathroom. But these can't be locked either. But my precautionary measures were taken by shutting one of these hall glass doors and hoping that if anyone was making a trip to the bathroom, they would get the hint that someone was taking a bath.

So this one day, I wandered down there to take my 3rd shower, and had shut the glass door, but it makes this loud dull clang that sounds like an entire bookshelf falling over when its shut all the way. And fortunately instead of ripping off all my clothes and lathering myself up with soap and shampoo, I just used the toilet first,for right when I was making my move towards my bag with all the soap, shampoo, and my towel, one of the lunch ladies flicks on the light to the outer room, and sees me, yells something incompresensible in Korean, and marches out. I was first of all relieved that my shower plans were discovered while my clothes were still on. And because, I was not really sure if she was mad or what, I followed her only to find her in the little kitchen where she was yelling up a storm and pointing in my direction telling the entire kitchen staff and all the teachers there that I was in there. I realized then, that that bathroom was off limits. And the principal of the school who happened to be seating on the floor Asian style at her table with chopsticks in her hand, looks at me smiling and shakes her hand, a sure sign that it was off limits.

So my plans were absolutely foiled. And the school showers are a complete no go. I just never thought, that my life would ever get to the point where I was risking being caught naked by, of all people, a lunch lady.

So onto other plans. I'm like the Wily Coyote and a nice, warm shower is like that blasted Roadrunner. I heard about this garden hose outside on the roof where my room is near. I figured that the hose fit better than the small hose that I had taped to the bathroom sink. So, the other night, I got my hands on this garden hose and hauled the entire thing into my shower room. I was getting my hands all dirty from all the residue and Asian dust that is coated on everything and anything that remains outside for an extended period of time in this country. And I ripped the existing hose and tape all off sure that this hose was the correct size. And when I finally got the huge garden hose hooked up, I found that the water amount spilling out was far less than my original hose. I think it had something to do with the yards and yards of coils, and with so much hose, gravity was working against me and not allowing water to spill out naturally. The only thing it managed to do was make all the dirt and grime from the hose get all over the bathroom floor mixing with the water forming this type of sludge that I begin to track in the rest of my apartment. I was ticked off again.

So tonight, I went to a nearby gym. I thought to give in and just shell out a little bit of money. I mean, what is a hot shower really worth? In some people's book its priceless. Maybe they had some kind of special deal if I didn't use their gym equipment, but only used their showers, they'd cut me a discount. When I showed up, it was one of the busy times of the day, and the trainer gym guy showed me the showers and all these naked Asian men were in there. And then we went over to his desk and in broken English and mannerisms, I learned that he could only charge me the full rate for use of the entire gym which was not bad, like $50 a month or $100 for 3 months. But I got to thinking that the idea of having to pay to take a bath with a bunch of Asian men was a horrible idea. Besides, I'm sure rumors would begin to spread around the gym that that incredibly white, white-man, would only show up to take public showers...What kind of perve is that? So I was back to Round 1.

Tonight, I used a different tape and taped back the first small hose that I had taped on the faucet and I squatted and took myself a shower, and at this point, I really didn't care about the mercurial water temperature nor that its a little streamlet. Besides its getting warmer here and a cooler shower is not that bad.

A Bar Fight Almost; Babylon Re-Revisited and Thoughts on Western Culture

2011-04-02T12:15:00.000-07:00

It was April 1st and there was no huge pranks done here, no shame-laced shenanigans, no plotting of the like. I am still trying to get my bearings and usually antics never come into play til I'm well grounded in the atmosphere. But a group of us went out to this comedy night in a nearby city called Suyon or something of that ilk. It was at a bar composed of nearly all Westerners. There are so many of these Western bubbles buttressed and moated from the East.

In my company was Ari, this chill, laid-back Canadian who teaches at my school, and whom I spend alot of time with...and Anton, this large, crew-cutted, South African. I believe he was something of a serious rugby player until he injured his knee. Now he teaches kindergarten to Koreans. He's a guy's guy. A meat and potatoes fellow though as nice and affable as could be. We were to meet Ari's girlfriend. A girl that had accompanied him from Ontario 6 months ago. And with her we were to meet up with Cecilia, this other South African who is now about to leave Korea.It being April Fool's Day, they had a sort of open night mic. And any potential stand up comics could get up and give the audience their best delivery. All of them were teachers, like us, I believe. And I think most were from the states or Canada.

Though, the crowd was different. Usually this particular joint is crawling with English teachers, most of them elementary ed, where they assemble to clink their glasses and swap stories about difficult students. Though, mostly to empty those glasses after they've been clinked. But tonight, there would be a different pull. A bunch of American military were there. When we walked in the door, the table where Ari's girlfriend sat, Cecilia, and another friend of their's was swarming with these military guys. One of these guys who seemed to be busting out of his little shirt with his muscles was sitting at the table, with his counterpart, what looked like a Latina who likewise was busting out of her dress with her own ability to make curves (but not in the best places.) We met several of them. It was slightly awkward. I thought it would be funny if some brave comedian got up and just roasted these types of military men. Mainly because of how audacious it would be. Very Andy Kaufmanish and would probably wind up with a trip to the hospital.

The comics got up and one by one. But, as every stand up does, each displays his self-deprecation on stage. The first guy lambasted himself for not being able to get girls to sleep with him. This girl from New York got up and talked about her lesbian exploits in Korea. Another American with an Arab background made fun of his ethnicity. One way, by opening up his jacket and having fake explosives strapped to him. Still another guy, mentioned pornstars and trips to the strip club back home. I do not know. I never really found many stand up comics very funny; this only reinforced my opinion. Nearly all of it, is divided up between two styles. A) Whom have a slept with. Or B) Whom have I not slept with and why is that? Every comedian picks one. Sometimes mixing the two up. And then you get the 4 usual sterotypes that its become cliche. 1)The minority guys. In the states, these are usually either black, hispanic, or historically, Jews making fun of their own backgrounds. 2)The lesbian making fun of guys they don't like and the girls that they once did like, but now they've moved on. 3)The fat person..sometimes the worst self-deprecation hurled at themselves just to get people to laugh. 4)And the cynical, horny white guys who make fun of religion and anything else that could possibly be sacred under the sun. Outside of those, our society is so confining, we are not trained to laugh at.

Meanwhile, around the pub, the scene was getting a bit mixed up. People in the back were being loud and obnoxious among themselves, when they should know good and well that we all came to hear someone hold a mic and be loud and obnoxious as well. People were getting pretty tipsy. And the smoke in the place was curling up everywhere. Everyone, I mean, everyone felt the need to hold a cigarette. I don't know if they were really smoking, but just holding cigarettes. After the comic acts were over...thank goodness. Everyone began to want to find various means of forgetting the evening, and funny enough, emptying their wallets on this forgetfulness. So that when they wake up the next morning they wonder, through a clanging headache, just why their money is gone. I never understood this in our society, but people seem to love this effect. Some people live for it.

At my table they began to play a game where they filled a large glass with beer, then they placed smaller mugs around it. I was never in on the college frat boy scene, so this was new to me, it was called Quarters, and you'd flip coins off the table letting them bounce, and the mug that it landed in, had to empty their mug. If the coin landed in the big mug, then everyone gulped down their own glasses; whoever was slowest in emptying their own mug, had to then guzzle down the huge mug full of beer. This was one of those games designed to make you half-forget the evening. I opted out; I was content with the beer in my own mug. Instead of playing some stupid game that tells you when and how much to drink. Apparently, its a noticeable, and probably rare thing to not participate in drinking games. People are almost offended if you don't want to act like an ass with them. But deep down, at least with my new friends here, I think they respect me. I've had two people on two different nights, tell me this. But either way, around these parts, you have to consciously make a decision to have a cut off point if you don't want to wind up stumbling back to the bus or taxi. Its definitely an excercise in willpower and peer pressure.

Anyways, I was sitting there watching the game observing the people around me. Actually, I was getting beyond people-watching and began to get bored, and wishing that I had gone home earlier. Alot of the military men had left, and there were a few guys I'd never met, playing the drinking game with Ari and Anton. These other guys had horrible Bacchus luck and kept having to drink their mugs or the really big one. One guy was well smashed even before the game and was standing up yelling stupidity from the edge of the table. He was a half-Korean from Nebraska. And maybe the first antic it was funny, in a ridiculous sort of way, but then it just got annoying. However, attention began to turn to this little bitty guy. He had this lip ring and he was pretty drunk as well. He was from L.A. He slung his arm around me and wanted to know why I was not drinking the glass of beer in front of me, that one of the Army guys had left. I told him that I just didn't. Then, he told me that I should claim it. That I should "learn to be a man" or some such nonsense.

Now, hold the thought there. I bet you think you know what the potential bar fight is to be about. Either it is me getting hot at this little man and his remark, or maybe me succumbing to his suggestion and taking a drink only to realize that the Army guy had not really left and was just looking for an excuse to get into a fight. Oh no, none of these. Indeed its kind of funny that I even mentioned these military guys for the tale has nothing to do with them. And after this little guy, said this to me, I just realized that he was drunk, probably suffered from the Napoleon complex, and basically understood him like I understood my kindergarten students. Not to take him serious. But with my friend it was a different matter.

Not too long after, this little man gets up and staggers over to Ari who was not particularly sober himself, and begins to whisper something in his ear. I don't know what he said, but soon they were standing chest to chest. And Ari looked pretty perturbed. Both had their arms out and were gesticulating. Now, the funny thing is that Ari is not really an aggressive person. He's pretty laid back. The kind of guy whose description of anything good is "chill". And for the record, he's a Canadian. -Not the most hostile people in the world. He doesn't get into the whole dominate over other people thing. I mean, I've only known the guy for a few weeks, but I think I'm a pretty good perceiver of personality and Ari doesn't strike me as the type that has to go around proving himself by kicking people's teeth in. But then again, this little guy didn't look like a fighter either. And alcohol can make what lies dormant in a person come out.

They were standing there and you sensed that any moment the sky was about to drop out. Someone even moved the table that was nearby, especially the pitchers of beer. Ari's girlfriend, Sara, was anxious. Though not out of fear of what the little guy may do to Ari, but I guess out of the embarrassment that one's boyfriend got in a fight at one of the only bars you frequent in Korea. Women don't look at fighting the same as we guys do.

As for me, I saw no point in intervening. Though, Ari could definitely handle him, I never think that violence is the best solution, however drunk people will be drunk people. If they fight they fight. It'll be over in a minute. People will look and glare, the bar may lose a mug or two, and it will be embarrassing for the defeated (probably the little guy) but then people will return back to their loud talking and nervous laughter and forgetting the night, and forgetting the emptiness that hangs in the haze of the cigarrete smoke and in the echoes of the blaring music heard overhead.

They stood there locked in this strange sort of tension. Eventually Ari pushed the little man, he stepped back even hitting the wall behind him. But no swings ever happened. They stood taunted each other, I guess. Not really sure what the other meant. Later, Ari said that the guy approached him saying his name must've meant that he was from Saudi Arabia, and that he was "not one of us." (whatever that meant). Which is funny seeing how Ari is almost as white as I am. Anton, the jock South African was standing menacingly behind the little man, which still didn't persuade him to just walk off. But eventually, Anton convinced him to walk up to the bar with him and forget the whole thing. And the two of them sat up there. It looked sort of comical from far off. This large guy sitting next to this small man. Both of them talking. It wasn't til later that Anton told us about how this strange, small guy, had unzipped his pants at the bar, whipped it out and had started to pee a little right there at the bar. Anton got up and left when he saw the guy do this.

Earlier, Cecilia, one of the South Africans, asked me if I could sum up the night in 3 sentences what would it be. I refused because I couldn't take everything in at that moment, but mostly because I didn't want to offend. But now, looking back, I think it would be something along the lines of, "With alchohol people get stupid. Always obey the urge to possibly go back to one's apartment. And our society as a whole is in real F***** trouble."

The Americans

2011-03-31T06:43:00.001-07:00

It appears that I've joined the work force again with an international hodge podge set of characters. This time, the group is limited to native English speakers. I believe we all hold degrees of some sort, but we've come from all over. Mostly South Africans, Canadians, Americans, the British, and a Kiwi. The ones living in this building, we are divided up between 2 schools owned by the same company called Jayeon. Besides me, there are 4 other Americans. One of these, is this girl from Texas who speaks fluent Korean; she's been here for 7 or 8 years. She's the manager of the foreign teachers here. And sort of helps run things regarding us. Though, she doesn't lord over us. I hardly see her now that I'm settling in. She's a professional. Hyper organized and super driven. You know, those types of people. I like her and I think she's incredibly good at what she does.

There is this other guy, a large fellow, named Bill who lives a floor down from me. A loud-talking, Soju-guzzling epicurean from North Carolina or Massachussetts. I think he was raised in the the latter state because he doesn't have an accent and doesn't act Southern. I mean, he's a Red Sox fan if that tells you anything. And he's got one of those Polish last names that only Northerners have. And I think he lived as an adult in North Carolina, after college and all that. I think he's afraid of religion. Brought up Catholic....that sorta thing. He's alot of fun though. He, apparently, sold lubricants to racing car companies and racing car drivers in NC before coming here. He likes to get drunk, and he likes to get loud, and I believe he likes to say offensive things in the presence of females, or really everyone for that matter. Its his way of bonding. But deep down, I think he's really a softie, very sensitive, and doesn't want many people to see it.

The other American is this girl that I've only had one conversation with. Mainly, because at this point I've only seen her once. She's from California and is dating this English guy who also lives in our building and whom I also have seen only a few times. The last American is an African-American from Oklahoma. He's a nice guy, humorous, highly effeminate. A homosexual. I was offered the extra room he had in his apartment. I'm not a homophobe and I can't stand all the condemnation...but I declined. It would be too awkward. But really, I guess the truth is, I would've turned down living with anyone for that matter. I'm in love with my own solitude. Especially after a day of teaching.

Well, looks like I covered the Americans. Hopefully, I'll get around to some of the other tenants from the other countries. Ones that I see more often. For all these Americans, are currently at the other school. I'm the only American at my school.

A Lost Generation

2011-03-27T16:04:00.000-07:00

One thing I must do soon. And that is tell you about the other foreign teachers at my school, that is the other tenants of the apartment where we all sort of live together teaching in South Korea while our homes are stretched far off in the distance . I must do this before I become facebook friends with all of them, not because I have any dirt to report about them. But mainly because, for the fact that I just met them, and it would be awkward for them to find out that they have become sort of characters in some new guys novel or play. I mean just the other day my neighbor Bill sat over cards and Soju and said something along the lines to the other poker players. "You know that, Brian, he's a writer...and what does he write about? He probably writes about all of us jackass fools." I only answered, "No. Not yet." Which was true...until now. But I should thank Bill for the tip.

I have worthy material right in front of me. On all 5 floors..in all of Suji City...in all of South Korea, in fact. But before I get into any of that. It should be noted that there is such a strong expatriate presence in South Korea, in fact, it seems almost cliche how so many teachers come over from the States, Canada, Great Britain, South Africa, and who knows where else...and expect to have some "out of home-culture" experience, only to ironically be immersed in a sort of "western-travellers" culture that is a bubble inside the Asian culture here. One has only to google "Korea blog" and a surprising quantity of blogs will pop up about So and So's One of a Kind Adventure Teaching in Korea. And then you'll be given quite the mundane details of them eating the food here, teaching, complaints about the school and the kids, and most probably going out with the other expats and getting hammered every other weekend. That's about the gist of it. Probably, it is a part of my pride, but I feel like I'm being cliche by writing about my life here. For I am merely doing what so many have done before me, it will not be unique, and after all there is nothing new under the sun. -But you see, I cave in. Perhaps really my pride, tells me that I'll spin it differently. That it will be broader, and yet deeper. So I write.

Now, before anyone takes the title of this post the wrong way, I should probably explain it. In my literary nerd, English majoring imagination, and in my present circumstances, I tend to remember, very often, the novel by Ernest Hemingway, "The Sun Also Rises". You must understand that Hemingway and Fitzgerald, as well as a good number of others from America and England, those guys, would write about an entire lifestyle in a foreign land. In "The Sun Also Rises" you have a mixed group of expats...all between their upper twenties to upper thirties living in Paris. Mostly going from cafe to cafe, drinking themselves silly, occassionally all going on a trip somewhere. In that novel, its Spain. What do they do for a living?...lots of them are aspiring artists of some brand or another. Though, all of them seem to be just escaping from the ordinary life back home, living an exciting life in a major world city. Flitting from city scene to city scene, No real purpose. - in and out of relationships, and perhaps, out of a sense of identity. -no stable ground. I guess you can see the correlation and where I am going. But some car mechanic, out of agitation, and noting the rootlessness and shiftlessness of these semi-young people during that time told Gertrude Stein, one of that generation's prominent authors, "You guys are all just a lost generation." And the term stuck.

Hemingway's generation had a better excuse. I mean, they had witnessed the most horrible war in the world up to that point. The pillars of the Old Western World had crumbled and what was left? Only the present. But now, I find a generation here, as well, as much of the backpacker hostels I've been to around the world, that is likewise very uprooted. And I, of course, include myself here. I could be something of a posterchild for it. -A prevalence of experience over effort or any kind of ties to tradition and perhaps, goals, really. The only ideals left standing are diversity, openness, and maybe a desire to see something new. Oh, and for the uber-idealistic, recycling and herbal gardening and medicines, there are those too.

But perhaps, I shouldn't be so negative or critical. I am merely stating the decorum around such circles. There is a lot of good in one's willingness to explore. Sometimes, when we are honest with ourselves, (quite the opposite of how we think it would be), it is easy to be so critical when it is a trait so prevalent in ourselves. Needless to say, there are alot of folks over here from various countries. Many have been over here for years and years, and I do not know yet, if its because they feel so rooted and grounded here, or for the fact that they feel so uprooted and disconnected back home, and here is a good place to just kick it around and enjoy life in the meantime.

The Thing about all these Blasted Children...

2011-03-26T07:56:00.001-07:00

I recall sometime ago on one of those golden afternoons that now that I'm further down the road, stands out a bit in my imagination. It was a magical time, I was with 2 of my friends and we had wandered off from this conference in Germany we were supposed to be attending. A train had carried us across the Ardennes Mountains into a Belgium that we hardly knew. Somehow we got turned around, almost lost, in this small country and ended up in a city called Namur...and everywhere we walked down the streets, and across the open city squares...there was nothing but children. I remember thinking how it was like the place where the Pied Piper of Hamlin lead all the children to. Either that or maybe the Lost Boys from Neverland had come back to the mundane earth and set up colonies there. Countless theories abounded. -The infamous Children's Crusades in the Middle Ages had really ended in a secluded town nestled in the Ardennes Mountains where they ruled the government with ice cream and pie fights. But either way it was strange and bizarre.

I guess in alot of ways, where I'm at now, is sort of similiar.
Of course, Korea just has tons and tons of people to begin with. But it seems that children are everywhere. The area where I am now seems to be swarming with the snaggletoothed vermin. You can't go down a road, however small, without it leading you to a playground. Now mind you, our foriegn teacher "villa", where I reside, is situated near a bunch of schools. In fact, if I were to take a taxi home, I would tell the taxi driver, "Suji City Jun Hakeyo". Which means Suji City Middle School and he'd know the area to drop me off at. But, it seems that EVERYWHERE I've been in Korea thus far has schools around it. Some public; many, many private. And alot of schools just mean that there are alot of children. I mean you gotta keep them from conspiring and causing a ruckus and schools have always been just that...enough busy work to keep the galley slaves from revolting. Or at least those were my thoughts on it when I was going through school.

Needless to say, even though I am surrounded by schools...the private school or "hagwon" that I teach at, is a good ways off. So I have to catch a bus in the mornings. And every morning while I'm waiting for the bus, I noticed all the children rushing frantically, some not so frantically...minding their time, going to their schools. The majority of them are decked out in school uniforms. -Blue blazers. The girls wearing plaid skirts. The boys that wear glasses look like they're assembling for an Asian Harry Potter fan club. A few children might be so little that their mothers are with them. But for the most part such an hour in the day, you feel that some sort of kids parade is happening. And its fortunate that you're on the opposite side of the road for if you were on the other side, they'd be no room for you, you'd be knocked out into the traffic or stampeded by shoes that light up in red lights with every step.

It seems that this isn't exactly new to me. I mean, when I lived in Russia. The nearest Metro stop to my apartment was called Akademichiskaya. Which translated rather roughly means the Academy. Apparently, where I lived in Moscow was an area famous for all the schools. But what's funny, comparatively with my situatin now, is that I don't recall whole migratory throngs of children in the area. I do remember a high school up the street, where a few young teens would be outside smoking all the time. The only memorable thought I have when I think back on it, was how there would be girls who looked no older than 14 holding beer bottles in one hand and a cigarrette in the other. There seemed to be dark circles under their eyes. It seemed they were children, but they weren't really children after all for they would adopt adult vices at such a young age. There was something very depressive and stifling about them too.

But in Korea, the youth have some sort of vital presence. They travel with their parents or maybe other kids, but they always seem doing kid things. And seem to be cheerful for the most part. Some even saying "Hello" if you are white. I guess it is a sign of a promising nation, maybe you could even venture to say, that it is taking the pulse of a nation, if there are alot of children and alot of energy around them, then it is a nation that is in good health as a whole. I don't know if that's true. I just made it up. But it sounds about right.

Korea has a strong drive towards educating its children. This is a brilliant move. And if you look at their economy, they are doing really well, especially considering how small a country it is. Because of this, there is such an ecstatic drive for them to learn English. Which gives me a job currently. And as one finds out, there is a whole booming population of expats teaching English here, not always, but alot of the time to children. This hiring, in the entire spectrum of history, is quite a phenomenon really. Or at least I think so.

But as a whole, because of this swelling population of children, I am in Korea. Being apart of this nation's future. I'd like to think that years from now, when South Korea through their prodigious efforts in scholastics, have colonized the moon, a time when us Americans are out of the limelight and notoriously only known for being the experts in worthless celebrity trivia, the President of the New Korean Republic of the Moon will speak up and say "I remember my English teacher back in kindergarten. He taught me, not only English, but how to share and love life. I played Simon Says with the guy, he'd draw crazy drawings on the board. I loved the guy."
Okay, so maybe I'm wishful thinking here. But at least one brilliant scientist or successful CEO is going to pass through my class, and I don't know...maybe be somewhat, if just a little, inspired.

A Dire Situation and the Exploration of My School

2011-03-23T07:02:00.001-07:00

I've already mentioned how my shower is a no good, dirty tyrant with a rare and capricious taste for hot water. It spews forth cold water and only intermittently, when the tenants on the lower levels aren't taking their showers does it become lenient and allow for something a bit warm. Even when it does work, it is a poor, stingy trickle. And then it is very hot; it almost scalds.

So just the other day, when I came home from school, I was immediately invited to go to shoot golf at a indoor facility with 2 of the guys in my building. Not that I can't wait to play golf. Quite the opposite, I saw it is an excellent opportunity to see something I've never seen before and to socialize with some of the other tenants. Now, it was Tuesday and I think it had been Sunday since I last showered. So, all I wanted to do was take a measly shower in my apartment. But after having the water on for maybe 5 minutes, the usual warm up time, the water instead of turning warm, it turned off. I was once again without a shower. So, I did something embarrassing. Though, true to my nature. I lost my temper and completely ripped the shower head off. I was like an irate Moses landing my frustration on the stupid rock, because there was no water. So there was to be no shower. Now, nor ever. I was pretty distraught right then and there.

So I resolved to rig something up to take showers. I found some spare tube and hose but couldn't connect it with the bathroom sink. In the meantime, I really needed to take a shower. But that would have to wait til tomorrow. I had to shortly scoot out for that strange and useless game called golf.
So this morning I woke up and it was Wednesday and I hadn't taken a shower since Sunday. So, I thought, "Surely in my school somewhere there is a shower. I mean there's a swimming pool. I'm left with no other real option."
So, I brought my shampoo, shower gel, and towel, if in the event that I should find a shower. In the middle of the day, from like 12:30 to 3:00, I have this long lunch and planning time. I'm already struggling to find something to fill the time. This would be perfect time to go on a exploration of this school in quest of a bath. But, I don't know if this is apparent to anyone else, but the awkwardness of trying to take a shower at an elementary school. I mean this could look bad. Real bad. What if I'm caught by one of the faculty? One must have ones clothes off to take a shower and being naked in an elementary school just doesn't sound nor look right. Or worse yet, what if one of the students wanders off and catches me taking a shower. Very awkward. And still it could even be worse, what if one of the students wanders off and catches me taking a shower but before they cry out or run off, maybe they're standing there bewildered at the naked white man drying off or what not, and a faculty member walks in, and sees me and this student in the same vicinity? I mean how horrible would that be? I don't think there could be a worse thing to happen. Dang it! And all I want is to be clean!

But something tells me this is so unlikely. I mean, the kids are way off in the cafeteria and various classrooms during this time. I'm sure if I found a shower it would be like one in a spare janitor's closet or a rarely used bathroom in a basement somewhere.

So I began my exploration of the school. The Jayeon School is divided up into two separate wings. One is primarily the English Language part (the part that I am only knowledgeable about.) And the other wing is the normal Korean school. On the English side there are 4 floors. The first floor is strictly administrative. Floor 2 and 3 is where all of us English teachers have our rooms. My room is on the 2nd Floor. One of the offices is on the 3rd Floor. And down in the basement is this swimming pool and a small kitchen. The kitchen is for the staff. The main kitchen and cafeteria for the children are all situated in the opposite wing.

I had no idea what was up in the 4th floor of our wing, no one ever went up there. It was quite the mystery. When much to my suprise, when I ventured through the shut door. Its what was called the English Village. And they all had these mock scenarios for the children to play and experience the world in English. Remember those little plastic kitchen sets that every little girl plays with? Yeah, my sister had one. It was like that...except it was the full works. They had an entire market with all the meat and can goods in plastic. They had the little shopping carts stacked against the wall. Then they had this little "play" airport with a toy security area that you walk through (Something tells me that these don't sell real well on the toy market.) They even had small airplane seats where the kids can pretend like they are actually on a plane. -And that was only the first main room.

I ventured over to another room and saw this mock beauty salon where all the little girls can even put on wigs and "get their hair and nails" done. I even think they had fake mascara for sell. They had a fake clothing store and such. It was like a little shopping mall.

What made matters more eerie is that the entire place was vacant. I mean, there was no sign of anyone else on this floor. The lights were out. And nothing was stirring. It was unnerving really. I continued to explore another hallway. I found this little area that was supposed to be the children's post office. They had fake currency. Some Korean, some euros, some American dollars, and even fake Canadian money. There was a little shelf with real post office forms, real Fed-ex looking boxes, and real envelopes. "So strange", I thought. I so hope that we foreign teachers get to teach lessons here. I hope I get to be the American postal worker.
And still, I went on. I saw this room that was supposed to like the children's pharmacy with a pharmacists station. And behind that was a mock hospital. With a hospital bed and even a play I-V. (The beds were real and looked comfortable; I now know where I can sneak off and loaf around.)
Yeah, the whole thing was so bizarre, but yet impressive. It was like a little people's ghost town. But still no shower.

I ventured into the other wing and made my way up onto the scenic roof. Very nice in the sunlight. They even had bushes up there. Then I went down, sneaking by the cafeteria where all the kids were busy making all kinds of racket with their tiny tin trays. (This was the first time I saw where they eat for I never wandered in this hall.) There was this other large room with a piano where I guess certain small performances are made. Whole closets were devoted to drums, tambourines, and other noisy instruments I'm sure the kids love banging the heck out of them. Then, I went down past the offices, and into the basement on this side and thats when I opened this door and through the crack saw these two older men laying down on mats taking naps. I think they were the bus drivers or maybe the Chinese teachers. I couldn't tell and I shut the door before they awoke. Yes, very strange indeed.

I next went to where the pool was, in the basement side of our wing. And that's where I found this little bathroom and a shower that had the most beautiful, hot water streaming from it. So I shut myself in the bathroom. And finally, took my shower without anyone walking in on me. And tomorrow I hope to see if I can fix my shower in my apartment so the above adventure does not become too frequent.

My Living Arrangements

2011-03-21T06:20:00.000-07:00

I was driven on a tired Sunday night when all I wanted to do was find a bed anywhere and dive in and see when I woke up if all this horrible, surreal mess about Japan was really just a dream. Back to when things were normal, I'd wake up at DF again, next to a copy machine, and this sculptor-monk would knock on my door and ask me if I wanted to do Lauds (Catholic and Orthodox prayers) for the morning with all these strangely diverse characters that could be in some freakish sitcom in some freakish universe somewhere. Yes, wake up to my regular life and how it was. But things were far from normal now.

As you see, my previous living arrangement probably took the cake on eccentric accommodations, I could spend weeks writing about that...but that is, sadly, no more...and I must relate my life in Korea.

In South Korea, it has come to be so widely accepted, that for a school when hiring a foreign teacher, they have accommodation taken care of. So if someone takes a job as a teacher, they don't have to worry about rent. Though, I will have to pay for the electricity, but not the water.

On my ride from the main international airport in Korea, my ride told me I was staying in a "Villa" like a prince. A "villa" supposedly where all the foreign teachers lived. All 22 of us. And when she said that my hope in wonderful soltiude vanished. I didn't really want to share a room with some late-night bar-hopping Aussie, or some uber homesick American playing horrible rap music to appease his lack of things American. But probably, I just wanted to live alone, if even if its someone I like, I oftentimes like to have my own space. Which took some getting used to in my previous abode.

But what turned out being a villa, was really an apartment building like any other flat building in South Korea. There's a glass door with a code that most be punched to get in and then a series of apartments situated up the stairs. I was given the very top. The roof or the tower. And it was a single. I would be the only person there.
I was offered a "nicer" place rooming with another person. But if you know me, "nicer" was never a selling point. Besides I had everything I needed in this apartment. The guy I could room with, was this American from Oklahoma, and not to discriminate but a highly...umm, how to put this without sounding like some sort of bigot.. .you see, he's a flaming homosexual,...which would make for some interesting stories. But this roof flat was mysteriously equipped with a computer that the last tenant couldn't fit in her suitcase so she left it behind. So I chose this one where I can type my tales on a computer, in my underwear...and not worry about annoying or attracting anyone.

The room has one large room where my bed is and where it is a sort of living room as well. Kinda like a hotel. I have a kitchen on the other side. In the kitchen I have this little dwarf refrigator with some obscure Korean condiments left in it from the previous tenant and a bunch of coffee drinks that I placed there. I am furnished with dishes and glasses and utensils all of various makes and styles. Most impressive is this water cooler or warmer, it's both really. A state of the art water dispensor that has to be plugged in and cleaned often. In fact, 15 dollars of my salary will go for some person to come around and clean it. For they say that the water here is not the best to drink. So I can immediately get fresh, cold water or hot water for tea or coffee. I have a microwave, which believe it or not is not as big a thing to me as in the states. I don't have a stove. But I have some sort of rice cooker. I also have this little dining table and a chair or two, but I doubt I'll use these much.

My bathroom, like many places in the world, is divided. Between the actual bathing room, and another closet that is my toilet. The toilet closet opens directly into the main living room/bedroom area. Which is another reason why living alone is a good thing. I now, with the door wide open, can survey the widespread kingdom of my bed and computer and other stuff strewn about, from the prodigious perch of my throne.

I have a washer machine but I haven't used it yet. I hope that that doesn't prove too difficult. It is in this other little closet all by itself, along with the ironing board, but I doubt I'll use much of the latter. I don't have a dryer, but this huge drying rack that stretches itself across the front kitchen wall has this massive blanket on it that, I think belonged to the former tenant. I've hardly noticed this huge drying rack and how much space it takes up, how oblivious I am to things most of the time.

The main room has some really good heating, which I found out when I got here; it was so cold. The floor heats up and I kick my socks off which is new to someone that always has freezing feet. I have these huge white dressers to place my clothes inside, which I haven't yet. They still sit in my bag and suitcase in the floor. I wonder if this is some sort of psychological sign...that I don't really want to move in. Here, or perhaps, anywhere. Yes, I've put off placing my clothes in a permanent home.

My bed is wonderful. Its very hard and firm. The way all beds should be. I've oftened resorted to sleeping on the ground because I find alot of beds too soft. But this bed is perfect. I have a big window, with a big draper that I can control when the lights spill through. I have this computer at this glass top table and a simple wooden chair. I have this nice, leather lounging chair next to this desk, but it is covered by my backpack and all those clothes that I haven't put up yet. I also have a TV. But this, I haven't even turned on since I've been here. So I don't even know if it works. Just last night, I noticed that I have a DVD/VCR player but it was stashed ontop of my enormous dresser.

I only have two complaints about this aparment. One minor and the other major. The minor one is when walking from my main room to the kitchen or shower room, there is this low hanging arch that I have to duck whenever going that way. I've only banged my head once, but it smarted so much...and everytime I walk to the kitchen I feel like I'm in a submarine and am stooping through portal doors.

My major complaint is the shower. Because I live at the top of this building for some reason the water has very poor pressure. It takes a good 5 minutes for hot water to come on, if it does at all. I think if there are too many people in this apartment taking showers, then hot water is nonexistent for me. Which when the temparture is in the 20s like it seemed when I first got here, that is a big deal. And when I do have a hot water it is trickling and very, scalding hot. There is no in between. Either uncomforably hot, or quite frigid. I've only lathered up once, shampoo in hair, only to find out that all my hot water suddenly had turned to ice water. I was pretty ticked. But I waited maybe 5 or 10 minutes, shampoo streaming into my face and eventually someone down below stopped hogging all the hot water. It was enough to make me want to take up the offer of a roommate, any roommate, if only to have a good shower. So now, I only take showers when I guess that few other people in the building are taking theirs.

Because, the former tenant was a female, its starting to show. My apartment phone is nice but very pink. I keep discovering "Hello Kitty" stickers here and there. She had just left too. Another American. Supposedly, she was in the airport in Japan trying to get home when all the disasters happened and she was stuck there, while I was in Alaska.

The only thing that this aparment lacks than a sufficient shower, is a lamp. I think I will buy one the first chance I get, because if there is one thing that I am still sold on, its reading in bed by lamplight. Overhead lights are much too bright and don't cut it. I've already bought an alarm clock for I feared over sleeping. But my first week, this would've been impossible seeing how I've woken up at 5 every morning. Except for this morning, when the alarm clock proved useful.

I'm also gonna purchase a humidifier or some sort of air cleaning machine for the dust over here is horrible and my allergies are pretty bad. But that's enough. I don't think I've rambled so much about household appliances in my life. I feel like I'm the MC for a game show.

What I Saw in Japan

2011-03-19T10:01:00.001-07:00

My stint in Alaska was short. And it wasn't too long that our infamous flight, those onboard flight 881, were called back to the original goal of our destination. We were headed to Japan only 2 days after the earthquake and tsunmai struck. We assembled early in the morning, packed in the Anchorage airport where we did a whole lot of waiting. -5 hours worth. I sat with the 2 Japanese girls and this Japanese guy. They didn't seem worried at all. It was as though, they had missed the anouncements about all the recent catastrophes. One of the girls, the one into elementary education was busy showing the other Japanese girl, pictures of a small child that was her relative. And then she showed me. I knew that I had some pictures somewhere in my carry-on, and I happened to find some that I have forgotten about. They were pictures taken in Africa, all of my niece, Baylor, whom I have yet to meet. She was with her dad, my brother, in one of them. And one with my sister, who had recently visited her. And with every picture that they flipped through, both Japanese girls would almost ring out across the terminal, "Kawaii!". Which means "cute" in Japanese.

The flight was about 6 hours or so. While in Alaska, I suspected they would try to avoid any flights to Japan, so I figured that they would redirect me straight to South Korea somehow. So I was a little surprised when they were sending everyone to Japan, anyways. That morning waiting in line, the airport television was showing the news and all the craziness that was going on. It felt stange to know you were heading to that place, and about to be greeted by smiling stewardesses who pass out quaint, complimentary beverages and snacks as you go there.

As we were about to land, it was announced that certain helicopters were in the area to blow away any potential radiation that may be in the air. But that the area that we were flying through was clean. We landed and amazingly people were not running around with their heads cut off. They were orderly and knew what they were doing. Because we were a massive flight that was rerouted to Alaska, it was going to take some time to accommodate everyone's travel plans. I stood in line with this American going to Bangkok for vacation. Apparently alot of people were headed to Bangkok. As well as Taipai and Hong Kong. Rumors began to circulate that they would have to stay the night in Japan and catch a flight to Singapore in order to get to where they were going. Eventually, we came to the line that was going to individually accommodate everyone on our huge flight. I was impressed with the way they...the people of Japan...were diligently working at our plight. And I realized that this was going to take a long time waiting in this line. But suddenly, a worker began calling for those going to Incheon/Seoul to step forward. We were lucky. They had already redirected our flights. But it would take a trip to 2 more airports in Japan to get there. We also had to hurry, we had little time to catch our next flight and it was an hours drive away.

This last part was a little unclear to me, at first. I had to go through Japanese customs and exit the airport, and then find somewhere the transportation that was offered to this other airport. Fortuately this young Korean guy saw me headed in the same direction and asked me if I was headed to Korea as well. I said "Yes." He introduced himself as Alex, and the two of us were busy trying to find this place to catch the bus. Eventually, two other Koreans, this young guy and girl were also looking for this bus. So the 4 of us were wandering all over this airport parking lot in Japan. It was a beautiful spring day. Not too hot and not too cold. The sky was clear. I had all my luggage on me. All that I was giong to call my possessions for a year. Nearby you'd see teams of individuals in bright orange or yellow suits. They were teams of relief workers from other parts of the world. I saw this one from Hungary. And this other large group of Germans getting on a bus. They had a dog with them to help them find bodies. Other than seeing these teams, you'd never think that anything out of the ordinary had happened. Mind you, I was a good ways off from where everything went down.

Our bus was incredibly difficult to find, but we found it. Apparently, us 4 were the only ones headed to Seoul on that flight, except for that large Taekwondo team that I mentioned at the very beginning. They obviously like to take their time, and we had very, very little time to catch our next flight. Besides they probably took a taxi. So, the bus pulled out and we began rolling through the highways of the greater Tokyo area.

You would think that I would've seen all kinds of mad, crazed dashes everywhere. People escaping, people fleeing. But instead, there were no buildings on fire, no massive ruptures in the ground where you could fall into the boiling heart of the earth. This was not a zombie apocalypse. The only thing odd I could see was the fact that the roads had very scarce amount of traffic on them. Everywhere you looked you saw buildings and signs that people lived everywhere, but you saw very little people. I mean, this is the largest city on earth and I felt like I was riding on an interstate road in Birmingham, AL on a Sunday morning.

I began to chat with the Korean girl next to me. She was from Incheon and was studying Human Physiology at a university in Boston. Her name was You Na and it was her Spring Break and she had come back home to visit her family.
And we talked for awhile. She was a Christian and was giving me contact information regarding a church in Korea. As we were talking, all of sudden as we got closer to the main part of Tokyo, we passed Disney World Tokyo. But it was shut down. Like some sort of ghost town that used to be a world of delight. The Korean I first met, Alex, allowed me to use his phone to call the lady who was supposed to pick me up in Incheon. That's the way I found the first Koreans I talked to, very very nice and easy to talk to. Alex ended up calling this lady in South Korea and having this conversation with her and letting her know that we were on our way and he gave her the time that we'd be landing.

When we finally arrived at this other airport that was closer to the main part of Tokyo, me and these 3 Koreans ended up hurrying through the airport to find these Japanese airline workers ready to assist. They knew we had a few minutes til our next flight, so two of these stewardesses ran beside us as we made our way down the terminal. It was a domestic airport. So there were tons of Japanese. Hardly any foreigners. I think I was the only Westerner, the only white guy, I spotted. Again, on the television at the gate, there was footage of what was going on only a few hours north. But the way everything was in this airport and the way everyone was acting normal and calm, it seemed like that footage was taken around the world from where we were all at.

One thing, I noticed in these airports was all the stewardesses. Its as though these companies only take application from beautiful Japanese girls to work for them. They all very pretty and have nice, official looking uniforms on. They all have flowers wrapped around their necks forming a type of exotic tie. They all smiled and tried accommodating you as best as possible and they ran beside you in order for you to make it to your next flight. I was highly impressed. Somewhere in paradise they have a corner of it laden with gorgeous Japanese flight attendants all with flowers wrapped around their necks while smiling their beaming smiles.. So beautiful, even when their nation is trembling, truly beautiful.

We got on that flight, only after finding out that one of the Koreans left his luggage behind at the airport in Nerita. Why he did that, I'll never know, but we had to continue on. We took a domestic flight to this other Japanese city in the south. Again, life was running normally. And it was there that we caught our flight to South Korea. The Japanese were so very efficient with us. I admire their ability to keep things going under such dire circumstances. I arrived in South Korea that evening. It was a Sunday night and I had started my journey on an early Thursday morning. In between those days, I had only 7 hours of sleep. So I couldn't wait to get to...not only my life...but my new bed.

Traveling is Really about People...Meeting New Ones and Reconnecting with Old Ones.

2011-03-16T15:17:00.000-07:00

I slept maybe 3 hours. I do not know why. I could've slept all day, but for some reason I woke up well before lunch. The wanderer inside me knew it was in a new, interesting place with little time. The sun was looking wonderful and sublime up in that sapphire sky, reflecting off the snow and all. I had to see this place that I'd always wanted to come to. Because it was March, however, the strange overabundance of day or night that Alaska is notorious for was not occuring . Day and night were in agreeance on how much time they had during the day. They had a deal, I guess you could say, just like most anyplace else.

So I phoned Andrea who I knew lived in the area. Though, I was taking a chance for I knew that she was probably very busy being a mother and all. And I was lucky, for she happened to be on her way to Anchorage anyway. They lived some way out. But she would be glad to pick me up at the Puffin Inn.

Excited about seeing my old friend and colleage, I went into the lobby of the Puffin Inn to wait. And there I found the two Japanese girls from the previous night, planning to go on their own excursion of this strange place fate had brought them, while the fires of their home country raged. They had maps in hand and strangely enough, had this cheery disposition. Both of these girls were about 20 and at the University. One was studying Japanese Literature. Later in our travels, I tried name tossing several names of authors around. But my knowledge of Japanese Literature being scant. I probably only confused her and myself. The other girl was studying Elementary Education and she was interested in the fact that I was going to Korea to teach children. She loved kids, you could tell, for whenever waiting in line, she'd glow any time a child was around. Their names was something very similiar like "Situka and Sutika". The consonants being all the same but the vowels being a pinch different. Oddly enough, they didn't even know each other before all this happened. Though they seemed inseparable. The Japanese Literature girl was traveling back from Disney World. The Education girl was traveling back from visiting some of her family in Ohio. Its just that this horrible catastrophe threw both their lives together. I would be willing to bet that they are best friends now. Dark times have a way of doing that. Since Andrea was driving in to pick me up, I offered them a ride to downtown Anchorage; I was sure Andrea wouldn't mind. And its better than them having to call a taxi.

When Andrea arrived they climbed in the back. Both of them sitting on either side of Andrea's daughter Clara who was in her car seat. The Education girl was beaming at how cute Clara was. And then we all rode to the central part of Anchorage, which was smaller than I had first thought. Andrea gave them clear directions on what there was all to see in town. They left going on their own and then Andrea, Clara and I traveled across town to meet Andrea's husband, James, for lunch.

I had first met Andrea way back in Texas at that missionary school I went to. At that time, I found it very cool that I knew someone from the Alaskan wilderness. She wore her dress long and her hair almost as long. She was probably the most mature person in our class, though I think she was only 18 at the time. She was a brilliant student. During our classes, we were at the top of our classes. I was a wild, creative person who for once in my life, if only once, decided to apply myself. But like a comet fizzles out. She was just a great student. Responsible, dutiful, and sharp. She was home-schooled and getting good grades and earning the respect of those older were probably 2nd nature to her. Then we ended being on the same team to Russia. She was in love with Russia from the beginning, had actually known a thing or two about the language and the people before she even knew she was going there. She proved a person full of wisdom and moral strength when there. I greatly respected her.

I recall before the days of Russia, when we were living in Texas, walking into Andrea's room. And seeing this young man in a framed picture sitting on her desk.
"Who's this?" I asked.
"Oh, that's James."
"Your boyfriend?'
"No. Just..(long pause)...James. A friend."
Right then and there, I knew something was up.
(She might've even had a flower beside the portrait but this could be in my imagination).
But she continued to talk about this friend back home in Alaska. How they had went to the same church and probably had the same snow ball fights outside of it when children.
And he even, a year later, went through the same missionary program and ended up going to the Ukraine. And after they had both got back to their home sweet home of Alaska. They got married and now they had their child, Clara. Wonderful news. It was good reconnecting with the both of them. For I had not seen Andrea since a few weeks after I got back from Russia, what seemed like ages ago. Though, it was strange, unforeseen circumstances that brought me hither. But how else does Brian Harrison wind up knocking on one's door?

North to Alaska

2011-03-15T16:39:00.001-07:00

Our flight to Japan being rerouted we touched down in Anchorage which was still looking like a snowglobe that had just settled. It was early in the morning, like 1 or 1:30. Though, not too bad a time for me to call my friend Daniel aka Adolph. He lives in Alaska and is usually up rummaging into something at that hour. But, no luck...even though he was awake as expected, my friend was working in the oil fields somewhere in the middle of nowhere, far north of Anchorage for that week. But I had another trusted friend in the Anchorage area, but she's got a family, and she doesn't rummage around at all hours of the night like Daniel. I would call her tomorrow.

For the time being our airline, United, was handing out free accommodations for the night. Flight 881, that's us, we were a large mob of confused people descending into the quietest of airports that was still locked in a Winter Wonderland. There was this stuffed grizzly bear greeting us as we entered the terminal. And we all assembled in the main lobby of this airport, around a stuffed polar bear in a glass case, no one really wanting to stay in the airport; no one daring to go outside in the cold. Above us was this large mural of an Eskimo who looked like he was living the dream playing on ice. Don't know what he was actually supposed to be doing other than looking like he was having the time of his life freezing his butt off.

Though we, the passengers, were all a bewildered rabble, the workers of the airport, who probably had to get their snowshoes extra-early that morning to help with this emergency, started passing out these little slips of paper with the names of hotels on them. Whatever slip you got, that is the hotel where you would wind up. I got this slip with the name the Millenium Hotel on it. I didn't know what to make of it.

And then we all waited for each of these hotels to send their shuttle buses to come pick us up and carry us all to our respective lodgings for the night. Alot of us ended up waiting a long time, I don't know if this was because it took a good while for the shuttle bus drivers to scrub the ice off their windshields or because they drive really slow because it was the kind of night stray mooses amble out in front of buses, but either way we were in the lobby quite awhile. But I shouldn't complain, for it was really nice of United to put us all up in hotels until we got back on a plane. They finally announced to us we were to meet back at the airport at 4 the following morning to complete our flight to Japan. By then the airport would be open. Actually the airport was already open, but it was good to let that Japanese airport of Nerita work through some things. I'm sure there were people stranded at that airport everywhere. We left all our checked-in luggage on board the belly of Flight 881, and equipped with only carry-ons we were to return in over 24 hours. Until then, we could sleep, kick it around Anchorage, eat salmon, make ice scupltures, hunt walruses, you know, all the things that one does in Alaska.

You must understand that for the most part I was very confused about the day. I mean we had just flown across the International Date Line twice. I actually consider it a great feat to have traveled into Tomorrow, and then turn around and fly back into Yesterday all within the same day. -But it was not the same day, or was it? Anyways, I'm quite thrilled about the mental mindbinder. There is something deeply metaphorically about it all, though, I can't tell why. I feel like "Doc" Emmett Brown.

A good portion of the people on our flight, who were now all waiting to be taken to their hotels, were Japanese. I cannot imagine what most of them were thinking. By now, we had learned more about what had happened in Japan. The TV in the Anchorage airport was covering it now. The Japanese seemed to hold themselves so well. No one was freaking out, no one was even crying. I guess that's a cultural thing.

I met these two Japanese girls from the Tokyo area. They had the same hotel written on their slips of paper, so we just hung out waiting for the shuttle. I couldn't help wanting to do something for them. And all the other Japanese people on our flight. I remember during 9/11 when I was living in Russia, all these Russians placed flowers outside the American Embassy. I thought that was really cool. And then I recall, this one Russian whom I had met only once called me up, and said something very hallmarky and sincere, "My profound condolescences, I send to you and the people of your nation." And I was truly touched. But yet, I couldn't think of how to do or say such a thing to any of the Japanese. It would sound awkward and sentimental. Russians can get away with things like that.

When the shuttle finally came, we hopped in and it took us to this mysterious Millenium Hotel. It was everything that a hotel in Alaska was supposed to be. There was another huge polar bear in a glass case, this time showing off his fangs. There was a bunch of mounted types of deer or caribou above the hearth. And below it crackled and popped this massive fire in the fireplace. There were old rifles and harpoons on the wall. Even a stuffed mountain goat. Off to the side, was this pub where they served hardy Alaskan beer in frothy mugs, that were clutched by the large, hairy forearms of lumberjacks and the ancestors of salty whale-hunters who told tales and swore by the magnitude of their opulent beards, that such tales of bear-wrestling and glacier trekking were all true. I grew excited.
But it was not to be. For not too long after arriving, we found out that this hotel had no rooms left. We had to wait on the shuttle to take us to the airport again. I was disappointed. Though, a large part of this was because I just wanted to sleep.

So we all climbed in this shuttle. There was hardly any room, I threw myself in the back of the shuttle where they keep the luggage. One of the Japanese girls followed. Back at the airport, the few of us turned out of the Millenium Hotel, were given new slips of paper with another hotel on it. This time it was the more modest, The Puffin Inn. And then we waited and waited once again. For some reason the shuttle driver for the Puffin Inn kept driving by the airport and would call and say that he didn't see anyone outside, so he figured that no one needed a place. Idiot! I mean, who waits outside at 4:00 in the morning when it is like 3 degress outside? No, we were all inside keeping warm and trying to fight the time and the urge to sleep by making fun of hotels that have silly names like the Puffin Inn.

Eventually, he came and we entered The Puffin Inn. It was a Motel. Which, I could care less. They had a bed. At that point, that's all I needed. Believe it or not, it took me awhile to get to sleep, though. Maybe 6 that morning. I fell asleep resolved that I would try to sleep as much as I could tomorrow. And then call the Smiths and maybe see what Alaska is all about.
....To Be Continued

Within 3 hours of Landing in Tokyo, We had to Turn Around...This is What Happened

2011-03-14T15:46:00.001-07:00

We were suspended somewhere between Alaska and Japan, near the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia, when the announcement was made. It certainly was one of those surreal experiences that you may daydream about but you rarely expect for it to actually happen. We were only 3 hours away from landing, which on a 13 hour flight, you were close to landing. Suddenly, cracking through the late night movie and across the comfortless dozing of the passengers, the intercom reported cooly.

"There will be a change in our plans. Apparently, a massive earthquake has struck off the coast of Japan and a dangerous tsunami is reported to be hitting Japan soon. The airport of Nerita is closed, so we are turning around and landing in Anchorage, Alaska. Sorry for the inconvenience. These are extreme circumstances. We will do our best to work with you through this."

There was a general mayhem onboard, alot of curiosity. People began to rumage about the cabin, not in desperation or panic, but perhaps for fellowship and questions. Of course, that's how I found myself walking around the plane, trying to eavesdrop on all the more assertive passengers who storm the poor flight attendants with question after question. One flight attendant was astonished. He said that this main international airport of Japan has never closed in all the 20 something years that he's worked. This had to be something epic. And unfortunately, all communication with Tokyo was inacessible. All that the pilots knew was that this airport was closed. And even communication with Chicago was little for they were being swamped with all types of calls. So it appeared that Anchorage was the ideal place to land for we had just enough gas to get there.

Sure enough, the little cartoon plane on the map screen that is shown on all international flights, careened around and now soared back in a northeast direction. Surprisingly, nobody really panicked and I was impressed with the level-headedness of the Japanese passengers. I mean, this was their home we are talking about.

I was eavesdropping on this one conversation even engaging in it, when me and this Cuban, a guy from Miami, began to talk. He was some sort of doctor and was on vacation with his family. I could understand only a half of what he was saying his accent was so thick, even though he'd been living in the US half his life, that and the fact that he was so short, I had to stoop to hear him. He was thinking that since he was a tourist, it would take longer for him to get through to where he was going and by the time he figured we'd be out of Alaska, his vacation time would be up. So as soon as he got to Anchorage, he was going to see about calling it quits on his vacation time. Alot of people shared in that sentiment.

The whole flight I was squeezed between 2 men from Taiwan. One was old, the other was young. They were both headed to Taipei. The old man was the little guy who sat quietly the whole trip either staring out the window or reading this interesting looking novel. At times he would close his eyelids and just sort of bask in the streams of sunlight that were pouring in through the window. I wanted to talk to him, thought that he might have some sort of inner wisdom about life...and when the disaster was announced...about all this. His english was poor and I liked the way his thick accent said "Orange Juice" when the flight attendant came around asking if we wanted anything to drink. When it was still day, and it was day a long time for we were traveling West with the sun, I noticed the way this old man would never watch any of the movies, the movies that I was sucked into because there was little else to do and they were actually good movies for the most part. No, his eyes were glued to the dream-like formation of the clouds and the way the sunlight would bounce on these cotton-candy castles.

The young Taiwanese man to my right, in the aisle seat was a law student in St. Louis. He was going to visit some of his family in Taiwan for spring break. His english was exceptional and I could carry full conversations with him. I could see that he was very sharp, but I also got the sense that he knew that he was very sharp. And people that know they are very sharp tend to be either extraordinarily conceited or they seem to swim in an aura of cynicism. Sometimes both. Not that this fellow was unbearable. Not at all, I had no problem with him and I liked him. Its just that real connection during conversation is kinda blocked. However, maybe some of this is due to my own ego wanting to prove itself. I noticed before he told me he was a law student, he broke open this book that only a law student would be studying, and it just so happened that this movie was being shown that had everything to do with the practice of law. I saw him get interested in it and slam shut his book as though he was thinking, "What's the point, this movie will tell me more than this book." And later, I found out that all of this was true. He was also going to Taiwan for only 5 days. So he was pretty resolved that when we landed in Anchorage, he would catch the first flight back to St. Louis.

Another talkative fellow that I met while wandering about the plane was this other American. We had this long spilled out conversation sorta in the area where the stewardesses hang out and talk about the passengers they don't like while they get ready to pass out pretzels. The American was from Kentucky or Southern Indiana to be precise. He was an engineer and traveling to Hong Kong for a business trip. He was wearing this awful looking Hawaiian shirt and had this bristly moustache and coke-bottle glasses; he was loud and gregarious. I've long held the conspiracy theory, that America dutifully manufactures characters that fit the "American-Over Seas" stereotype, and then sends them all over the world to represent our country as a whole. Why the government does this, I will never know. But he fit the bill exactly. He couldn't count the number of times his company has sent him to Hong Kong, but he goes on these business trips twice a year. He was a Methodist and I could tell was worried about his son in college who was "majoring in Psychology, but more into studying booze, girls, and drugs". I made the quip that he was probably learning more about psychology than he thought.

That's what I like about long flights. You get a short glimpse into all these strangers crammed around you. For a brief spell you travel alongside them, hear a story or two, and then you continue on to wherever it is that you are going. And you find that this is true, people are everywhere going places. Some are only wanting to get home, some are only wanting to get away from home, some aren't even aware that there is a home. Meanwhile we talk and stretch our legs about the cabin, we are suspended way up into the clouds, oblivious to the strange fact we are flying. And then something horrible happens that cannot be explained, and even deeper, something significant is felt that we are all just travellers sharing in the same path with the same questions dealing with the same tragedy, however touched by the same light.

As we flew into Alaska it was 1 in the morning. All was dark. But one of the flight attendants announced on the PA that off to the left the Northern Lights could be seen. We were fortunate to be on that side of the plane, so the two Taiwanese and I, stretched our necks around and sat open eyed to the mystic play of the Aurora Borealis. It was this greenish hue that danced above the horizon. It was one of those things that I've always wanted to see. And luck would have it that even before I stepped a foot in Alaska, I would get to see it. There are many things within Nature that I don't understand, its seemingly savagery of quakes and tsunamis, and its tranquil beauty and mysterious serenity. A friend of mine just sent me a letter about this question. I think we all share in this great perplexity, yet wonder.

...To be Continued...

My Flight to Japan and Korea: The Beginning

2011-03-13T13:46:00.000-07:00

(The majority of the following was mostly written while on this flight before I had even known about the catastrophe in Japan. So this first part is light and flippant in tone.)

It began as much happenings of memorable stamp often do, -quite normally at first and everything was fine. It was only the night before when I found out at what time precisely I would be flying out the next day. I tend to be able to survive off of so little information.

The flight was to be from Birmingham to Chicago, from Chicago onto Tokyo and from Tokyo to Seoul. The first leg, everything went as normal. I arrived at the Chicago airport; a place that was suddenly familiar from my recent New Year's escapade. However, with the departure from Chicago headed to Tokyo, the plane was forever stalling.

A group that rivalled the size of a village sat in a Boeing 747, packed, elbows oblongly rubbing against each other in the seats, leg cramps already starting, and yet instead of clouds and the burst of sunlight a traveler receives when one mounts above the clouds, all that could be seen out the oval windows was Chicago cement and Chicago suitcase cars under that bleak Chicago sky. Apparently, we were waiting on a group of 26 stragglers to take their dallying parade and amble on board.

They fooled me, immensely. Because they were awkwardly late, I thought I had claimed as reclining plunder one, of their aisle seats, because no one was coming. But no, I had to squeeze myself back into the sardine-crammed middle and await my 12 hour sentence of probably no sleep and no easy visit to the can. (and I mean that last word almost literally.)

It turns out that the majority of these late folks and rebels of the clock, are all traveling to the East to kick butt in Taekwondo. They all had these shirts on detailing the fact that they were into trying to break things with their appendages, though this glaringly American group of people hardly looked the part. They obviously were NOT masters, nor even in the training for the special art of How-to-board-an-airplane-on-time. They entered smiling and joking as though they were having the time of their lives making everyone else possibly miss their connecting flights. I mean if you're gonna be late on a plane, at least look dour and nervous. And if you're gonna be one large Taekwondo team that's late on a plane, at least make it look like you had to fight and Karate kick your way to the gate. Have scratches and ripped clothes, several black eyes, busted lips and so forth. Someone could even have their arm twisted, contorted as though there was a last battle stand-off to get on that plane headed to Tokyo and appease all the other passengers.

But I guess in reality, they probably had their excuse for being late, some dodo head in their group left a pair of nunchuks in their carry-on bag, or some careless, thoughtless Bruce Lee left a few ninja stars in his britches, and they all had to stay behind and be strip-searched by security. And a security that doesn't play around with toothpaste, you know isn't going to let a class A ninja star or nunchuk through without calling the FBI, CIA, Bomb Squad, the A-Team, Sean Hannity and Fox News as well.

But regardless of their being late, that wasn't really the problem that made us real late. Our real tardiness was do to to some "simple malfunction that had to be checked on ONLY for legal reasons and had nothing whatsoever to do with our safety." Or that's at least what the guy on the intercom said. -I think that was a translation for "there is something really screwed up with this piece of crap engine, and we the crew, will wet our britches if we have to fly over the Pacific in it."

What's interesting about culture seeing how the same message was relayed in both English and Japanese, the guy probably spoke the first prettied up version for all the Americans, who if given the truth would start to whine and complain and theaten to hurl lawsuits all over the cabin at the first sign of danger, where the "real" version was said in Japanese knowing that they'd be calm and solid, maybe a few frowns here and there. So before that delightful rush down the runway and leap into the air, we had to turn this huge hulking dragon around and get some obscure check-up back at the terminal.

While the disgruntled passengers huffed about the plane, I paced about and began to notice more closely these Taekwondo practitioners. They certainly didn't look like martial artists, not in build, demeanor, nor expression. They more closely resembled a group of people that were going to an ice cream convention, or were part of a Disney World Fan Club. Some of them were very young, others were a bit old. I think they all wore their Taekwondo shirts, bags, swish pants, regalia, etc. to let everyone else know that they, believe it or not, were experts in the art of breaking boards with their knuckles. Because no one would think come to this conclusion by a first glance, or several glances for that matter, without they proudly announcing on their articles of clothing

When they first boarded the plane late, I thought that any potential hijackers would be shaking in their knife-concealing boots, thinking, "Goodness! Of all the planes I had to hijack, I had to pick the one with 30 black belts!" After examining them though, I began to suspect that maybe the Taekwondo Tournament phrases stitched all over their clothing was really, just after-all an exotic bland of ice cream.

But far outweighing this motley bunch of fighting cranes and squatting tigers, the most imposing figure on board was an older Japanese man who had nothing to do with them. It was really only because he was wearing one of those Michael Jackson surgeon masks that Asian people like to wear, to let you know that they are uncomfortable breathing in the same air that you just breathed out. Talk about menacing! The guy stood in the back like a statuesque villian in a Mortal Kombat game. Though he only came up to my nipple, he could probably whip the entire troop of Taekwondo poster-child wannabees with the bag of pretzels he was just given by the stewardess.

But perhaps, I am being an ignorant American. It is only because he was Asian and wearing one of these ridiculous masks did he look like the dazzling ninja of the watercloset, blocking the way, demanding a fight to death with katana blades for any who wish to use the toilet.

But as we took off and flew through the sapphire strastosphere, and after we finally arched over the Pacific while half-entranced and half-bored with the all the flight movies, something was churning and curdling far below, something down, down into the depths, in the discontent heart of the earth, in the ravaging bowels of the ocean. Someplace far under the area we were flying over, thousands and thousands of feet below the darkening sky and inside the quickening sea something was brewing, and we were flying high and had no clue.
...TO BE CONTINUED...

What Happened in Vegas

2011-01-02T14:26:00.000-08:00

I shall tempt the boozy party gods and rail against Bacchus' sloshed sacrament, by telling precisely what DID happen in Vegas. I know, I am playing with fire. I am breaking decorum. I am setting myself up for not being invited anywhere because I will reveal all. Not as though, I am a snitch, but that I revel in a good story and I've got to tell it like it is.

The plan to go to Las Vegas was concocted on a last minute. I had a free ticket voucher for anywhere in the lower 48 states. I had no money, and little time to contribute to this venture. Times are harsh. And I had to act fast or my free ticket was to expire. So I naturally thought to go somewhere for New Years Eve. And I picked Las Vegas. I had the idea to go wearing nothing but a tuxedo. Since my trip was to be less than 24 hours, I was to take no bags, no extra clothing, not even a carry on. But just board the plane both ways, and wander the streets and casinos in a tux. But this plan fell through. I couldn't get my hands on one in time. And my short visit to Vegas was to be a cold one. Temperatures dropping to freezing point. So, I'd rather go in a nice warm coat than a thin suit.

I arrived in normal attire. A hole in my blue jeans. And a coat that was definitely warm, but is also a part of the Birmingham Police that I got through...well, another story. I had a pair of nice wing-tips on, but these were borrowed and seeing how my feet were not used to them, they proved to be sort of uncomfortable with lots of walking.

For the first few hours, I found myself feeling a bit bored. I had no money to gamble on. Nor to see any shows. The people watching was not as spectacular as I thought. I mainly amused myself by going from casino to casino and seeing how they differed. I also was pretty tired. I had only slept a few hours the night before, and I was to pull an all-nighter, I desired to rest up. So, I found myself trying to find a suitable spot to lay down for a while. I tried the Luxor and MGM Grand. But could never completely drift off to sleep. Eventually, I found myself walking down the strip in the cold with aching feet, and the thought that i should be drinking something...to at least, make me a little warmer. And hey, it's Vegas.
So I bought a small bottle of gin. And mix it in the soda that i was working on. Pretty nasty, i know.

That's when I make my way into the Mirage. And eventually, I have to go to the bathroom. Now, I am funny on some things, okay, many things. One funny thing is that when I am going to the restroom #2, I like to be alone. So all the crowded restrooms in the casino areas, I avoid. So I wander up into the Conference Center area intent on good solitude. This Men's room was lavish and huge. The lights gleamed from the spic and span floor and there was no one around. I partook of a stall. And somehow while sitting the gin began to kick in a little. And well, perhaps regardless of the gin, I like to sing especially in rooms that have great acoustics, so I began to sing. The Mirage is the casino where they show the Beatles show. So alot of the overhead songs in the building are the Beatles. So I begin to sing along. Just then, a rare person came in, and I still continued to sing. Somehow, this probably WAS due to the gin, i thought this was incredibly funny. And would belt out the songs even louder. That person would leave, and maybe a couple of minutes would pass and then someone else would come in. And the same thing would occur. I was mostly resting my tired feet, but the ironic thought occurred to me, that this is the most fun I've had in Vegas, thus far...sitting on a toilet crooning out songs letting them bounce off the walls and serenading strangers while they peed. And I was amused at this thought. Felt a sudden surge of excitement, that now replaced the tired ennui that was prevalent before. And came out of the Men's Room.
Down the hall, was some large party going on. People decked out in formal attire. Obviously a line to get in with some sort of invitation needed. It was the main ballroom of the Mirage. I approached and just missed an opportunity that someone coming out of a side door left me. The door shut before I could get to it. And it was locked. But this only whetted my desire to get in. I ended up taking the employee's only hall that is usually a labrynth snaking inside fancy hotels. And I cut in, so naturally, through a back door to this elegant ballroom and the Cinderella type festivities going on inside. I was not drunk. People who know me, know that I do this type of thing when I am most sober.

The lights were dim, and the tables were set in elaborate decorations. They served nice finger foods. But I hardly took notice of these for off towards the stage people were dancing and music was playing, so I didn't hesitate at all and jumped out on the dancefloor. Doing all kinds of fancy things with my feet. I am immediately complimented by this older Mexican lady who is dancing with this boy, a relative. And we all dance. Pretty soon, I notice that the floor is opening for me and my dance moves, a circle is formed around me and some people are video taping me dance. A part of me was scolding myself for being so inconspicuous, "Idiot. So much for not being noticed, and blending in." But then the stronger part of me just laughed, "Yes, now this is what its all about." I danced and danced. In groups with different people.
Eventually, I also realized that it was an open bar, and so all drinks were taken care of. So I grabbed some champagne. And guzzled it down. I found out that the party was being thrown by this billionaire, though I do not know the name nor what connections anybody had to this host. It was a diverse set of folks, alot of Hispanics and Asians. And apparently the crowd was big enough that alot of people didn't know other people, enabling any party crashers an easy time.
By the time Count Down was to occur, I had met 2 Asian girls, dancing with both of them, had gotten more refills to my champagne, and was well-respected on the dance floor. I set people laughing from their seats as they watched. And then the countdown occurred and confetti and streamers shot through the air. People hugged and kissed and swayed and clinked their glasses together. The music picked back up, and I was dancing wrapping myself in streamers.

Eventually, the 2 Filipino girls invited me to come with them. And I was obliged. They wanted to go to a lounge at their hotel where some of their friends were. So we walked out. Not a bad party, you walk in uninvited and unknown; you walk out with 2 chicks on either side of you.

I sat in the back of this limo with these 2 Filipino girls for there were no taxis. I found out they were from LA and both into dentistry. They asked me how I was invited to the party. I told them, "Oh, you know...a friend of a friend. And you?"
"Ah, we were personally invited by the billionaire. He was the old man in the red bowtie."

We made it to their hotel and were in the lobby listening to more music and slightly dancing. And eventually we were sitting down at a table waiting for some more of their friends, when I felt a bit different...all that champagne...the room began to spin. And fortunately the girls were talking to each other and didn't notice that I bent over and threw up. Other people noticed and were commenting about it, but not suprised..I mean it is Vegas. And this was not the nastiest vomit, it was the clear, fizzy champagne kind. Even has a classy sheen to it.

I excuse myself, to the bathroom. I still didn't think that the girls had noticed. But I go to the restroom. And then sit down outside in the downfloor hallway trying to collect myself...and yet throw up again. Somebody comes by and places a plastic fedora New Year's hat on my head and says, "Happy New Year!" I use the hat to cover the times that I'd hack more champagne out. At this point, I was too embarrassed to return back to the Asian girls. I went outside and sat leaning against a pillar in some type of flower bed hidden from everyone and threw up some more and just sat there in the cold. Eventually, I thought that I had a pretty good time and that i should probably head back to the airport to catch my early, early flight that morning. I take a shuttle there and sit in the dead airport where no one is at. And there, believe it or not, still getting rid of excess champagne and finding the airport swaying. Eventually, though...I go and check in and get coffee. And sober up completely. Was doing really well on the flights and layover back.

Moral of story: Sing all you want to and as loud as you want. Dance as much as you'd like to and as wild and zany as you can. But go easy when it comes to Drink.

An Advent Poem

2010-12-20T15:34:00.001-08:00

The following was written for my church this past Sunday. It follows the Advent season with the theme of Waiting for God's Love. (Which sparked quite the debate on facebook recently). In this poem, I pictured it being that the world's wise men take a sweeping view of life and existence, and the source of being, in which, looking into point blank, causes meaningless and despair. The view that God is not near is so easy when the shadows and brokeness of our lives are so apparent. This poem sort of follows the wise men in their understanding of at first, the emptiness that understanding brings, but next, the advent of hope and presence which the Christ Child brings.

Most of our days we are swimming in the dark,

The light we once knew enflamed from the sun,

Has been engulfed by phantom shadow sharks,

Devoured, our shining childhood of stars and sun,

While we thrash, and gasp for air to the sky above,

"Oh, Where, oh where is God's Love?"

Ah, how the whole world is locked in not seeing,

Having been born in pain, we give birth to pain,

And clam against our natural source of being,

Blinded by all that our existence contains,

And rail and rage, and spit and shout,

Our voice rings out, while we stomp and trod,

"Oh, where, oh where is the love of God?"

We claim that the earth has been mute,

And our own wild sobbings are the only sound,

That unravels the songs to the cavernous roots,

Of mountains, and fallen stars shot down,

They whimper and wail, in shattered clods,

"Oh where, oh where is the love of God?"

But hush, hush the stirrings of the self,

And listen, Wise men, to the soft breeze blowing,

There's an enchanted murmer ringing through the shelf,

Of the skies, and look there, in golden-gasps glowing,

-A star, that hangs above the desert world we trod,

"Perhaps, there, over there gleams the love of God."

Divine mystery that now descends,

How all of nature erupts in song,

And the vibrant star with all light blends,

The highest ecstasy to where we belong,

We approach this night's secret solemn vow,

That, near, so very near rest God's love now.

Now existence radiates with untarnished light,

The God that was so distant, aloft, not here.

Has broken through the terrible, phantomed night.

His Presence, now in our presence, so near.

A human like us, a child, a babe from above.

"Here, right here, rests God's boundless love."

An Apology From A Deleted Facebook Friend

2010-11-20T07:24:00.000-08:00

The slap has been felt, the dis has been served, the insult waged...apparently there is this application now on facebook that allows you to see just who has deleted you from their friends' list. In other words, who not only doesn't claim to be your friend, but even lowlier, doesn't even want the shallow acquiantanceship that being facebook friends is all about. Okay, so now that I am smacked with the utter glove-in-face, kiss of Judas removal, I'll pay homage to those fair-weather facebook friends who sacrificed their friend number in order to end the lives and times we shared half-glancing at each others status updates even though for the most part, I've never had a single conversation with half of them. I post this knowing it will never be read by the following...ex-facebook friends.

To Gus Yaekley.... I always considered you to be a man's man. Though, in truth, I somehow arrived at the conclusion that life had something more about it than Alabama Football. But you showed me and the rest of the facebook world just where a passion could lead you. I'm sorry...I couldn't respond "Roll Tide" to nearly every single status update. If I had to do it over again, maybe I would save our friendship by writing the scores of the games on your updates. (Perhaps not last weeks scores though.)

To Bob Mitchell.... For the record, no, I was not the Brian Harrison that you pledged Alpha Ki Sigma with 4 years ago. And no I never went camping with you during Spring Break where you choked on that funnel, and for the last time, no, I was not the Brian Harrison that swore to swap the Milton twins with you on a twisted date idea. I only befriended you because your name was as generic and common as my own. And that maybe I did in fact know you. Unfortunately, how badly mistaken we both were. Nice to know your fraternity dues allowed you to keep up with your "good" friends so well. I think it took you 3 years to realize that I was not your so-called brother through thick and thin.

To Laura Witherspindle.... Why, yes, you sat behind me in History of Literary Criticism. And I will admit that you were easy on the eye. I think we had one in depth conversation on the superiority of American Cheese to Swiss Cheese and this was only because we both were hungry. I dropped my pencil once and you picked it up for me and I thank you for that....but why it is, that you deleted me as soon as you got married, I will never know. I mean, its not as though we are exes or anything. Or that I was keeping you as an option. I mean our conversation about American Cheese was splendid, superb...ranks as one of the profoundest conversations I had in my college years, but come on.

Marcie Powers.... I am sorry I wrote that status update where I used the quirky metaphor about overweight Latvians floating like icebergs in the Baltic Sea. I had no idea that your great-grandfather was, in fact, a large, portly Latvian who lost his life on an Arctic exploration at sea. Next time, I'll try to be more sensitive with all the strange things that I put as my facebook status.

Tammie Shipton.... While, I am sorry for making out with your younger sister, I am far more sorry for mentioning it to you.

Michelle Shipton... I am so sorry for making out with your older sister after I told her how poor a kisser you were. I had no idea that this would get back around to you.

Johnny Shipton... Sorry that I laughed to you about how I made out with both your sisters.

Marcus Matthews... I apologize for one time cracking a joke about one of your political rants. Next time, I'll use my freedom of speech with a grain of salt...and be sure to agree with everything you say.

Courtney Williams... While, I must admit some of your profile pictures were quite the masterpieces in subtle erotica, I guess it dawned on you that not every guy responds to pictures of a French maid outfit half-revealing a well-carved derriere. But what does it matter, I'm just one less of your 900 male facebook friend list.

Glenn McDooley... Yes, you had the most supreme musical tastes on facebook. Some people probably thought you a music snob. But I knew you to be ontop of the entire scene. Whenever your profile picture would pop up with the Harry Potter glasses and the serious look, I knew that I was in for a sublime musical treat. Sorry that I one time posted that Youtube video of the Bee Gees on the facebook newsfeed. If you were still around, I'd post John Denver all over your wall just to spite you.

Mickey Allbright... I had no idea that you had lost your left eye. From all your profile pics, I thought you were just a guy that was just extraordinarily proud of his abs. For that was all you would post. I guess, that photo album I made of "All the Fun Things to Do With an Eye Patch", really rubbed you the wrong way.

Sarah Gimble.... Sorry that I responded to your birthday by sending you an electronic bucket of KFC. I thought it was funny, you being a fervent animal rights activist. I had no idea you would take it so seriously. Or maybe it was the time on my facebook status that I mentioned, completely being silly, that I was so "disgruntled with my life that I could drop kittens off the top of a radio tower." It was just a joke!

Disclaimer: Actually, all the people and stories on here are entirely fictitious. I don't even know how to work the application that details the people that have deleted you.

A Bizarre Halloween Memory

2010-10-29T09:14:00.000-07:00

We have spent the year in front of society's stage pretending to be something that we are not fully, only to, on Halloween, to try to hearken back to some less appealing shade of our ourselves and put it to light. That is why, traditionally, the specter nightmares that inhabit our thoughts and lives need an outlet once a year, and are given sleeves, cloaks, and a ghastly face. A sort of masked catharsis of what is hidden. But something in our society has recently shifted. Now kids go about thinking themselves to be vampires and pirates, and even werewolves, the whole year round...and so the outlet must also shift to what is repressed. Perhaps, that is a good reason why one of my costumes for this year is a Mormon. And how a few years ago amidst the phantom-lurking New Orleans, I dressed as an angel. Not as a statement for me, but a cultural statement of something of the solid right vs wrong ideology that in our current society has been repressed. This is not something planned out. No, it is mostly unconscious. And I've just made the connections now. We are all letting out ghosts that we can't really kill off in our pantomimes and play.

Years and years ago, back when I was 19. I got wind of a contest that was going on. Up to $3000 to the winner. This was a direct invitation to my mind to whirl about and think of something astoundingly clever. It was always a gift of mine to be able to walk into a room and conjure up costumes. Perhaps, deep down I was always looking for this catharsis. -And so wear a mask that revealed more that it was pretending to hide. Then, the idea struck and I knew that it had immaculate potential. This was back when the idea of cloning had really taken off. The big result was a cloned sheep which had been all over the media. And many people were fearing something catastrophic. So why not, be a doctor gone through this experiment with a horrific result. A doctor that had reached towards the heights of science and came toppling down and morphed himself like a pair of siamese twins, along side a laboratory sheep. It was clever, thoughftul, and a cultural statement. But yes, like most of my life's themes, the idea was far easier than the execution.
Nerd Triva: I was basically retelling the story of Frankenstein. For galvanism was a cutting edge idea during the 1820s, where the idea of sparking the essence of life back into the bodily dead was much deliberated on. Almost 200 years later, here we are again, Science's probing, plastic-gloved hand grappling for that mystery, the essence of life. But this time doing it again, in a capitalistic way, by multiplication of numbers....cloning.

I needed certain ingredients for me to cook up this idea. 1 medical dummy. 1 lab coat. 1 sign, and a bunch of cotton, or something or other that would look like wool.
My strategy involved "borrowing" a medical dummy from a nearby community college. Easily executed and brow-raising enough, it wasn't the first time I had done such a thing. I think this was the time, one afternoon, that I just popped my trunk of my car open right next to the biology department. Ran in and grabbed the dummy and slung it over my shoulder like a caveman hauling off his cavewoman. Threw the dummy in the back of the trunk and then wheeled off. No one noticed. This was all before risk assessment had developed in my brain. (In many ways, I'm still waiting for this development to fully ripen.) I also had to "borrow" a medical lab coat from a hospital. I walked in some doors I wasn't supposed to be behind, saw this white coat hanging on a peg down the long, waxed hall. I could hear doctor's voices behind a wall around the corner. Didn't care. My heart was pounding with every step. The hall with its shiny, reflecting floor tiles seem to be the longest hall in the history of the world. Right when I got to the lab coat on the peg, what little risk assessment I had slowly peeped up, as I saw some doctor's name on the coat. I think that I actually was back in the ER and I shuddered at the thought that I may rob someone's life because some poor doctor was missing his lab coat and couldn't fully focus on a crucial open heart surgery. I would return the coat the next day, but still you never know. So, I spun around on my heels and exited the way that I had come in without being seen, but also without the much needed lab coat.

My costume idea was falling into problems, this act of creation was being stifled by all kinds of dilemmas. Also, I realized that I was a year over the age to qualify for the contest. I think 18 was the cut off point. So, I had to turn to my friend Nathan who was young enough to compete and who, most importantly, also would be willing to wear the most ridiculous outfit there. I had another friend who was to come along also. Rocky, who was older and supposedly was trained in military combat was sort of our bouncer if things got hairy. If my idea won the $3000 then we would all split it. So this meant that I had to come up with 3 costumes in the space of a day. Rocky, a shady creature of seedy proportions, to this day I do not know where he is. He always struck me as some sort of con artist. My mother, who is a good people detector, did not like Rocky. And all my other friends were wary of him. But, there was some shared madness in us, so I put up with him and he put up with me. I decided the irony of his character was for him to go as the Pope. I constructed his outfit in no time. As for myself, I was left against the ropes. But went as a Mad Hatter (and this was before mad hatters were popular; originality was something I always strived for.) I had this burgundy leisure suit that I wore for all occassions this being one of them, along with a baby blue ruffled shirt.
Nathan, was cheated the most, for his outfit was incomplete, the essential idea didn't come to full fruition. I couldn't get the lab coat, I couldn't get the wool in time, and I didn't even bother to make the sign that read, "Cloning Experiment Gone Wrong". But I did have one medical dummy. So Nathan who was probably the same size and weight of the dummy placed it in his clothes, which made him look like a pair of inseparable Siamese Twins with 2 heads, 4 arms, and so forth. Very, very weird. Now, it was all a shot in the dark of whether or not we'd win any prize at all.

Then we descended upon the club that was hosting this costume party, and realized that we were all fish out of water. Except maybe Rocky, who probably frequented strange, seedy places in his spare time. The rap music was pouring through the walls, while the cigarette smoke was pouring through the doors. Everyone there was probably much too young to be smoking, much less drinking, much less dancing, half-mating like they were. I was appalled at what was a 14 year old girl or two booty dancing on the main dancefloor. Hardly not a soul had a costume on. They were of that age and that mentality that to dress up was lame. But some difficulties arose, mainly because Rocky's costume.

As the Pope, he was decked out in a white robe, and the majority of the party-goers were African American and the only thing that they associated with white robes, and I don't blame them, is something to incite vehement hatred and outrage. As we walked through the throng of sagging pants, neon raving sticks, and the haze of Black N Milds, I was frantically assuring myself in Rocky's self-proclaimed expertise in judo and street brawling. He had at one time, fought in the Mighty Man Contest where the roughnecks of Dothan get together and knock each other's nose cavities loose. Nathan, they just stared at, for in the dark lights, it really looked like another real person was in his clothes with him. The way the couples were latched together in this joint, though, it might have been seen as normal. With me, on the other hand, they completely missed the reference. I don't think too many of them were into Lewis Carroll. They thought I was trying to be some sort of pimp. And they booed and laughed at this. Its remarkably funny how cultural icons are distorted in a entirely different social context.
Those entering the costume contest were called up on stage, much to our mounting uncomfortableness. All 7 of us. And they would call our numbers out and we'd parade on something that resembled a catwalk to the mob of bumping, grinding teenagers. Our costumes got the most boos, mockery, and jeers than any of the others. I think if they would have had fruit, they would have pelted us with it. They guy who won was some urchin that just placed a store-bought Hellraiser mask over his head. Lame. But as it turns out, he didn't win $3000. The wording in the contest is crucial. For it said "Up to $3000." He merely got a chance to draw for that $3000 bucks, which probably wasn't actually in the raffle bin. I think the US Army uses the same tactics to get people to join. All he won were free passes inside the club and maybe a T-shirt. Double Lame. Some how we all managed to get out of there without a fight and without any tears or rips in our unappreciated costumes.

Wanderlust; A Poem

2010-09-18T13:01:00.000-07:00

I feel the winds assemble together,
Each bearing some shard of thought or dream,
Til they mount up and break the tight tether,
And the heart's gust swoops up from the earth's mean scheme,
Then the settled soul becomes a feather,
And goes gliding on a wandering moonbeam.

My eyes can no longer hide that distant gleam,
Of the wind's whirl, of star-teased gypsy dream.

I've borne the North, South, East, West, on my back,
Til each whispered their own alluring sighs,
So I stuffed them all on an ancient bookrack,
Called, "Stability". -Now, their muffled cries,
Pierce my ears for my world-wafting backpack,
Which holds my confused self, cut off from all ties,

I'm sick of my moved heart telling unmoved lies,
Waiting for that which Fate clearly denies.

I define myself by the moment's hue,
Of what sky hangs, and what clouds swim by,
And now I feel the void of inertia's flu,
Coughing up the sound of some half-heard cry,
This place sulking gray, my heart panting blue,
Pining for some fresh, unknown land to try.

This, my bedazzled soul sprouts wings to fly.
Can it be? Every "Hello"s a "Goodbye"?

A Questionnaire...This Might Make You Envious...

2010-09-12T20:15:00.000-07:00

So here we go. I just did my own questionnaire. But instead of filling one that already existed out. I changed the questions to make the whole piece more exciting and dramatic. Mainly, because I don't think that too many people are concerned about what time I woke up this morning or what I had for breakfast. Or even what music I am currently listening to. No, I needed a challenge. So the following is my list of accomplishments in my life. It may seem that I am bragging. This is because, I guess when you get right down to it...I am. But a man must make his life zing with something and if he gets to tell tales about it afterwards then so be it. Let it be done...with all its madcap mayhem and zany adventures.

All in a Leisure Suit

Rather than ask simple questions about various experiences in my life, I've decided to add the phrase "....in a leisure suit" at the end of the question to make it even more outlandish. For example. Instead of the basic phrase "Have you ever urinated while swimming in a pool"...I would attach .."in a leisure suit?" to make it all the more a challenge. The answer is "no" in this case. But let's see about some other questions.

Have you ever been in a fight...in a leisure suit?

Yes, my senior year of high school with Scott P. He had more licks in, but I delivered the better hits. One was when I kicked him in the head with the cowboy boots I had on to match the leisure suit. Yes, brutal, I know. I'm more a pacifist nowadays.

Have you ever crashed a wedding reception...in a leisure suit?

Yes, it was a Hindu wedding reception. I had a wig with the leisure suit. I owned the dancefloor. All the Indians cleared the floor for me and my moves. Eventually, me and my friend were asked to leave.

Have you ever made out with a girl you hardly knew...in a leisure suit?
Which continent?

Ever done anything both illegal and dangerous....in a leisure suit?

I one time climbed ontop of the roof of the famous Opryland Hotel in Nashville while in a leisure suit. That was probably illegal. And then one time, in a country bumpkin karoake lounge, I butchered the song, "Boot Scootin' Boogie" while donning a leisure suit. Given the roughneck crowd in there, that was pretty dangerous. Now enough of leisure suits. I only remind myself that I can't fit into my favorite one.

Feats of Stealth, Cunning, and Agility

What's the greatest place you ever snuck into?
Either an Alabama and Auburn football game in Auburn, or the Uffizi, and various other high prestigious museums in Italy.

What's the greatest place you tried sneaking into but didn't succeed?
Disney World, and it still irks me.

Impositions While Traveling?

Let's see I was kicked off a train in Spain once. I was almost kicked off a train in the US in the middle of nowhere Texas. And I kicked myself off a train in Italy to keep myself from being fined. And I was really close to getting kicked off a train in the Ukraine, but with my fellow travellers, we negotiated a "certain fee" that allowed us to stay aboard and not go hiking through the cabbage fields.

Greatest Hitchhiking Story?

I was picked up by a member of Parliament in New Zealand. She bought me a meat pie and tea, and even asked me to be her sort of date that same night at some kind of publicity event.
Or possibly, the 3 female bartenders that picked me up in Ireland. For those curious, I wasn't wearing a leisure suit, and I didn't make out with a single one of them.

Acts of Courage and Derring-Do

Ran with the Bulls; Pamplona, Spain

Bungee Jumped in Thailand

Jumped off (a guided jump) the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere; Auckland, New Zealand

Less exotic...but went sky diving in the US.

Accomplishments of Legendary Hype

-One night, snuck into and drank from Ponce De Leon's fabled Fountain of Youth in St. Augustine, FL. Didn't bother with the touristy one. But trespassed and jumped to the ancient one in the middle of the park. Gives perpetual youth.

-Drank from the Castalian Fountain in Greece near Delphi and Mt. Parnassus. Gives continuous poetic inspiration.

-Kissed the Blarney Stone in Cork, Ireland. Gives the gift of eloquent speech to all who climb up the Irish castle and kiss this stone.

Artifacts Gathered (Probably Illegally) "Indiana Jones Would Have a Fit"
-3 Grecian and Roman coins from Turkey
-Bits and pieces of limestone from one of the Great Pyramids of Egypt.
-A chunk from the Great Wall of China
-Russian Ruble that dated before the Bolshevik Revolution. Imperial Czarist Russia.
-Rocks from an ancient settlement in Ireland.

Ever been in the back of a Police Car?
Yes, once in the US because of a school fight. Once in Moscow right on Red Square simply because they wanted money from me. And once in Turkey because I was helping them.

Run-Ins with Wild Animals?
-Most painful was when I stepped on that sea urchin in Thailand.
-A charging mountain goat came close to knocking me and a friend off a tall precipice in Northern Greece.
-A heifer almost clocked me in the Pamplona arena after running with the bulls.

Run-Ins with Tame Animals?
-Rode an elephant in the jungles of Thailand.
-Rode a camel in the Sahara near the pyramids.
-Raced horses in Egypt and Guatemala. Nearly being hurled off both times.

Run-Ins with People?
-Attacked 3 different times in Russia. Beaten up once in Moscow. Tried to fight off 2 guys at one time. Didn't work. I'm not Jet Li.
-Had dealings with the Polish Mafia in Poland when helping transport a car across Europe.
-Was pickpocketed in Spain. (Fortunately, it was only a sheet off paper I had in my backpocket).
-Stopped a pickpocket in Greece.
-A few fights in high school.
-Was sort of "attacked" or "man-handled" by a mob of African prostitutes in Barcelona. Had to flee from them. It's my blonde hair. What can I say.
-Once an old man in Istanbul tried to grope me.

Places Unwanted and Forbidden?
-Kicked out of the nation of Belarus for not having a proper Visa.
-Almost prohibited from entering Turkey. I was saved by another American.
-As mentioned before...was almost kicked off a train on the border of Russia and the Ukraine.
-Disney World has a ban on me for trespassing.
-The state of Texas once issued out a warrant for my arrest due to a mix up in traffic court. (Their fault...not mine.)
-Possibly Camp Wiregrass...at least, from visiting at 3 am with fireworks.
-Since I didn't pay that ticket in New Zealand, I wonder....

Uncontested Cultural Experiences
-In Tibet, taught Buddhist monks in one of the most sacred temples and monasteries how to play air guitar. We sat around chatting and laughing.
-Was the star guest at a Muslim bar Mitsvah in Turkey. Danced with over a 100 people celebrating. Had many of them mimicking my dance moves.
-Wandered into an obscure village in Fiji and met the chief. Became friends with the entire village so much so that they let me ride their only horse, and let me attend one of their meetings where the men sit around drinking kava and conversing important matters.
-Was offered the hand of a Muslim man's daughter in Fiji. If only I'd convert to Islam.
-Owned the dance floor at a Vampire's Ball in New Orleans on Halloween night. A place where people who really think themselves to be vampires assemble.
-Peanut Festival, Dothan, AL
-Laid eyes on the infamous San Simon in a remote town in the highlands of Guatemala. He's supposedly the spirit of Judas, a Mayan god, and a conquistador rolled into one.
-Worked at Wafflehouse for 2 weeks.

What is the One Thing that People will remember you for from High School?
Someone with a political caricature mask of Bob Dole streaked the marching band once. Many people swear up and down it was me.
-No comment.

What is the One Thing that People will remember you for from College?
Probably my graduation stunt where I toppled all the way off stage.

Any Regrets?
Yes, of course. Who doesn't have them. The question is, do I regret more the things that I did do. Or regret many of the other things that I could've done but didn't do?

Observations Of A Census Worker (Is this really America?) Gloom and Doom; Read with Caution

2010-07-08T22:24:00.000-07:00

Probably the biggest thing to hit me, to actually make me reel from its impact, more so than vicious dogs, or gun-toting rednecks, or even the squalid conditions of how in America there are still people who live like they are in a Third World Country, was the observation of all the broken families.

And yet, it was not something that immediately seized me, as though, I had never realized that this was the case with common America. As though, I was oblivious. At first, it seemed quite normal. I would go from house to house. And it wasn't until I was assigned an entire apartment complex that I noticed that nearly every home had experienced some great alteration that I am sure when the vows were exchanged or babies were planned or unplanned, at least in the sweet execution of making these babies, that most of these people, had really thought that the life that they knew, the people that they surrounded themselves with, the oaths sworn, and the duties took, that these would all be a permanent fixture.

A slight insight may be able to observe that, perhaps, people living in a house, statistically speaking, are more likely to stay together than people living in an apartment complex. Maybe there is a tie between the permanence in middle to upper income households compared to lower income households. (Maybe its all financial; its easier to walk out of a lease agreement than a house payment.) I am sure that there are a number of studies on it. But still, the fact is in plain view that none have been exempt. It is just more glaringly obvious in closer quarters. The irony lies in the fact that perhaps, in the scenes where man must live in close proxity to other men. And in a living circumstance of uniformity. He or She rebels against this uniformity. And revolts him or herself from the obligation that they have for the dependence or service of others. This is neither cause nor effect; just a weird observation on my part.

Of course, I never ask such questions about one's family life. But it becomes apparent when the children's last names that one writes down are all very different. As though, the mother or father wanted to be original and name them with differing last names as well as differing first names. It is to be expected if the housing unit has 3 kids, one of them, I would be willing to bet my large cup of Mountain Dew, (and if only you knew how important this cup of Mountain Dew was out in this summer heat) that one of these kids was from an altogether different parent. Now, I do not wish to point fingers at anyone as though I am speaking from some sort of moral tower. There is enough brokeness already. And I am not at all writing this out of sheer guilt inducement or moral disgust. I mean, I myself, come from a broken family. As well, as almost half of the people reading this. But, it finally struck me, from out of the textbook, statisical connotation that I had already known, now, in a entirely experiential way, how the shrapnels of a broken family have not only become common, but have become expected. In other words, I want to ask, "My God, what the hell happened?"

Modern man's alienation is complete. A man or a woman must express himself or herself, and he does this by affording himself the illusion that he can walk in and out of any situation that he so chooses. But he is a fool, for he deep down senses that he cannot do so, that he cannot have this ultimate freedom, in our hyper-modernized rut of a mechanical wheel, we call the rest of the world. So he is squashed and perplexed, yet surprisingly unaware at his own squashedness and perplexity, so much so that he pushes to sleep the thought that this may be the case, and assures himself that he is the opposite, "I have freedom to choose."
So he bows out his chest where he knows that he should be prostrating, and he demands his freedom in what is left in the wake of modernity, the last remaining vestige that man belongs somewhere....the family.

Love has since become a byword pronounced between the commercial breaks for Pop Tarts and Weight Loss. Marriage has become, at best a jest, a farce wherein all the actors and actresses upstage one another with lines that they cannot live out. Yet, the bride will still have her pomp and her white wedding day as though it is some sort of pageant where she will be cherished and adored...at least for that year's parade.
And the groom shall walk proud and tall, like a rooster, some strange concoction of hero and nameless villian....sacrificing all only for the way that this woman makes, he, himself, feel.
The guests will appear, and each giving a toast for this season's charade. The wine glasses will clink and shatter. And the fragments will scatter everywhere, among the birdseed, and the spilled water that had, in this case, never really turned into wine. If lucky, the wedding flowers may actually wilt before the marriage has.

Sorry for the despondency and despair, but this seemed to be the case, whenever I would knock on a door at this apartment complex, and almost every other time it was a single mother with at least one child, maybe a few more from previous marriages. There is this very subtle phantom that hangs in the air, after such interactions. As though, there was this inner anguish that has been lived through, though this is all unaware and unacknowledged. Now, it was on to new things, new interests, new possibilities, anything to squelch the dismal anguish that presents itself after such experiences. But these women are so strong, seemed to have this matter-of-factness about them. Much stronger than me. And had I experienced the emotional turmoil that they've gone through I would probably ball up into a sobbing mess and hope to die.

Why, just yesterday. I was invited into the air conditioning and out of the heat, by what first appeared to be a woman still quite young. I could sense her invitation was something other than concern for the Census Man. Immediately, upon entering, I see a young man, thinking it to be her husband. And even before I can utter a salutation, she makes sure that I am aware that this was just her son. And the baby that he was holding was his son. So, I had 3 generations represented in this household. But no where was there a trace of the other participants to this budding procreation. This lady, this grandmother, actually, was nice. Too nice. And she had successfully convinced me, even more so, her own self, of her youthfulness and her sexuality. (Perhaps convincing herself of these is the most important thing). I recall her swaying, strutting walk, when later she was in front of me, for she knew that she was in front of me, walking to her car. Who has time for brooding over the shattered past? When there are still more babies to be born, or at least the sheer pleasure of making them, and you still have good form and movement to carry out this fruitful engendering? And when the new offspring is popped out, and your genes are passed on, and by one more addition to our species we are safeguarded its very survival, we can stand ameliorated in our deepening appetites and not hear the chaotic break of our own lives, and the ones we deem that we love. Perhaps sex is really the antidote we use over and over again to ward off thoughts of death and the meaninglessness of life?

I am not a preacher of reform. I am only a person with a habit of observation and a jolting drive to express what I feel and see. So there is no direct point to these thoughts. Other than to perhaps, awaken myself to what is. And, maybe if not too dangerous with any ego, awaken to what could be.

But if I had the artistic ability, the powers of a Giotto, or a Michelangelo, or some such Renaissaince master painter of the Holy Family. I would paint a piece of a Modernized version of the Birth of Christ. But it would be synonymous with the current times and trends, instead of the stable being the setting it would be this big opulent house with buzzing, whirring electronic devices. Joseph would be missing. Whether that is due to his utter abandonment of Mother Mary and the Christ Child, or whether its due to his long hours at the office to pay for this opulent house with all the electronic devices, is up to the viewer to decide. Either way Father Joseph isn't there. Mother Mary is a distracted mess, but consoling herself via all the other hot carpenter types she's chatting with on eHarmony. And little baby Jesus is laying snugly in front of a television. The wise men are mere wives' tales, so they are no where to be found. And instead of the barnyard assembly of chicken, goat, and ass, we have a medley of media celebrities and magazine superstars surrounding the birth of Christ. Forget Herod's sword and the might of Rome, what dark and dismal times is this Christ Child born to bring peace and meaning into?

Dauntless Shenanigans and Courting the Tomfoolery that is Life

2010-06-26T08:47:00.000-07:00

Cut off from the earth like a hapless vagabond full of sky and good-timin' sunshine, I lead a life first met with inconsistency, next matched with spontaniety, and finally dabbling in strange distortions of societal values. -A Bohemian existence, shall I say.

My old boss of shady proportions, who lives mysteriously in Las Vegas fedexed me a large sum of cash to go build merchandiser racks in the state of Mississippi. I went shoestringing my route, rushing through my work. So that I could keep the remaining dollars. It is here, that the thrilling imagination mounts into solitude and one finds oneself in a hotel room, thinking of all the fun that could be had with $900cash. Not with the spending of it. I am a great-grandson of the Great Depression, after all. But of the sight of it. The psychology that is wrapped up in seeing one hundred dollar bills.

I drove back to Birmingham intent on an idea. There is this church in Birmingham where all types of rooms are left to be filled. Filled with all types of mayhem and chaos that is life. Some people use it as their work space. Some people use it as their meeting space. And some people, use it as their sleeping space, as I have from time to time. The doors are open to be flooded with life in its many degrees. And not to push any agendas on people. It is an attempt at real community. Now, there is this fellow staying in the building right now, named Lee Free. (That's his actual name not an allegorical one, believe it or not.) He is this large mountain of a man. However, a bit skittish. And doesn't like to stay up at the building by himself at night. I have this ongoing relationship where whenever I happen to be staying in the building, as well, to creep up on him and scare the mewling inner child out of him. Much like Tigger springs out at Winnie the Pooh. Then, I laugh hysterically. Just like Tigger does as well. It's all so much fun. And Lee will always try to get me back. But I have ears like a rabbit, and can hear his heavy footsteps coming a mile off.

This time, on this night, Lee didn't know that I would be up at the building. So I had a plan for him as well. (Place the idea with the Ben Franklins out of your head; I'll get back to that one.) So I arrive and I wait for one of the many groups to leave. When the group had left and the silence had wrapped itself around the building. Now was the time to act. I went into the nursery and gathered up a baby seat. A stuffed animal frog. A little squeaky toy truck that made sounds. I placed the baby seat a few feet from his door, with the stuffed animal frog in it. (Of course.) and then I went and gathered up various clothing from another room. And sitting in the other hallway, I constructed this scarecrow of a man. Sat him down facing Lee's door as well. He had dark jeans, a dark hoodie, and the final touch, a Mardi Gras mask wrapped around his hood. I stuffed a pillow into his stomach. Made him look like this little goblin of a thing sitting in the hallway.

Then, I used the toy truck and would place it right beside his door, and press it, and it would make this very subtle noise, followed by me scatting down the hall and hide in one of the other rooms. But Lee was so immersed in his online game...that he didn't hear the sounds of the truck. So, I must've pressed the truck 4 times, before finally the toddler truck began to honk its horn. At this, Lee arose from his internet stupor, and opened the door. I wish I could've seen his face when he saw the baby seat and the goblin man. I was crouched in a dark, neighboring room, biting my hand to keep from guffawing. But I quickly saw him walk briskly by the room where I was hiding towards the door. He was getting out of there. Then I could peek and see Lee smoking a cigarette and watching through the large glass window at the hallway. My car, I had taken the precaution of hiding it. In his mind, he was all alone in that building. Oh...what fun. Eventually, I revealed myself, and Lee, in turn, revealed his mind with words that aren't supposed to darken the insides of where a church meets. But it was a good laugh and that was fine and fun and all...

...But it was all merely prologue and preface to the bigger prank that I planned the very next morning. I arose bright and early at 5:30 am. And began my preparations.
My intended target was the man, Bobby Jackson, who had an office or studio in the building. There he, the artist, would sculpt these little orc and elf figurines for World of Warcraft geeks. He is an interesting character. (As everyone who goes to our church). And I knew that it would be a feather in my cap if I could pull one over on him. For this Pygmalion of Fantasy-Net Dorks...had also been an Army Ranger. And now, he prays with Monks. I knew that whatever I had planned, I had to make it good and believable.

My first advantage was the idea that I was not around. For I have gotten a reputation for myself, wherever I am, that just my very presence when anything off-the-wall happens, is an explanation in itself. If they knew I was present, it was almost a dead-give away. I've excelled in the art of puckishness so much that I must be absent in people's minds before I can really concoct anything.

First things first, I got myself some caffiene. Then, I hid my car from the parking lot again. I went into the front lobby and painted this seedy scene. I turned over a table. And two large 4 ft tall candlesticks. Placed the candles on the floor to make it look like they had rolled a bit. I found a wooden stick with a nail in it. Then a gargantuan pair of jeans. Threw them on the floor. I borrowed a pair of tennis shoes, from Bill, (another so-called tenant who was not around.) Placed one shoe inside and the other outside the building near the door. I unlocked this front door. Then placed this large kitchen knife and placed it also outside. Next, the money. I laid down 9 Ben Franklins scattered on the floor. I used powdered coffee creamer dabbed it here and there. To make it look like cocaine. Then I had let thaw in one of the bathroom sinks the night before, a thing of frozen meat. It was dripping and I thought to make it look like a few drops of blood. But it was more broth than blood. So I used it very sparingly. I could've used Taco sauce. But I knew that Bobby, an Army Ranger, would knew what real blood looked like. And fake blood would be the one thing that would reveal it to be a practical joke.

The randomness, with the clothes and the shoes was a vital part of it. No one, when planting a scene makes detours in thoughts to confuse it all the more. No..an obvious sign that something is fake is that it speaks its purpose directly. That there is too much evidence leaning one way or the other...is the mark of a fraud. No, real life is messy and confusing. If you want to really duplicate a real-life scenario you have to emulate this question mark with all its variable postulates and rabbit trails as well.

But of course, the hinge was the money. Had i planted only $20 bills out there, it would be too little. In truth, I was banking on the idea that no one, Bobby Jackson, especially, would believe that someone would go so far as to use real $100 bills for a prank. What idiot in his right mind would? Right, Brian Harrison would. And the sheer audacity of it would be the selling point.

I had everthing ready and then I hid in the sanctuary. I opened the large doors so that i could see everything. I lay down in the back chairs in the shadows. The view gave me what would be a fine cinematic experience. Where all I did was lay the props out there and then the actor would enter the set and merely react from the cues in improvisation. I waited awhile, fighting off drowsiness and making sure that I kept my eyes on that doorway. Because, what if someone else entered the building? That was no small sum, at least for me, laying strewn about the floor. And there was the factor of the ants outside being attracted to the coffee creamer? Would it be believable that ants are into cocaine? Such thoughts...

But not too long of a wait, and the suckerfish arrived to take the bait. But it was even better for he was not alone. Steve Duncan was with him. Another man who sometimes uses the building for his work as well. He was a fun, outgoing man that I am forever in this ping pong match with. He usually spanks me. This will be my revenge.

This was even better. For as I was only expecting Bobby, and a very quiet scene, a silent movie, where I would have to guess from his facial expressions at what he was thinking. Now I heard both their deliberations. Bobby's voice pitched into high surprise. I could already detect their exclamations from the parking lot with the discovery of the knife and the first shoe. "Don't touch the knife". Bobby called out.
And then I heard Bobby counting astoundingly the 9 Franklins scattered on the floor. I think Steve was stooping to pick one up. "Are they real?"
"Don't touch anything!" exclaimed Bobby. Then, as they observed the other props around the lobby. I could sense their flabbergasted mental wheels churning. "This is so strange." They both kept saying. Steve's powerful observation, "These pair of pants are huge! I don't think I know anybody that wears this size."
"And look there's blood!"
"Nope, I don't think that's blood." Bobby observed.
"We gotta wake up, Lee. Maybe, he'll know what happened."

At this, I knew the gig was up. For I didn't really tell Lee the night before to play along with this prank. I only mentioned briefly that I was going to get Bobby real good. I had to sneak closer to the door, to hear their interaction with Lee. Lee had just woken up and was still muddled minded. They were questioning him. Telling him that there was a bunch of money in the front hallway and what looked like a struggle. Did he know anything about it. At this, Lee, mentioned with quick reponse that the money was his.
"Really?"
"No."
"Then how did it get there and what happened?"
"Brian was here last night."
And with that you could hear the light dawn. "Oh.." they both breathed normally for in that one sentence everything was explained.

"That idiot Harrison! well...I'm gonna take the money." Bobby deliberated. But, of course, I took that as a cue for me to come out of hiding. And claim the ownership to my expensive prop. Which I was sure to deposit as soon as I could. For it was all a part of me saving up for a trip I want to take a trip to Africa hopefully soon.

But the whole antic worked. And now I'd imagine. That I won't be able to pull off another good one for awhile. And who knows all three of these guys may be planning a pay back.

The Archetypal Trickster,
Harrison

A Player Among the Old Ladies

2010-06-05T20:03:00.000-07:00

I knew that working the Census I would be rapping my knuckles against the door of many a person with a tale. Sitting myself down, I would be given much more than the customary information of the number of individuals that park their heads down at night.

Little did I know, the rapt attention that the Golden Girls would be paying me, or more like it, I would be paying them.
I find in more and more people a delightful story, of which I can't help but share with other people. While the clerical information that I gather may be confidential, the fireside chat, the entire charm of this job, is not...and I wish to share them with you.

I have here the story of three older ladies. All of them widows. So, let my wandering pen manage to steal your attention away from the glamour-obsessed, plastic-indulged magazine racks (double meaning in that last word) and hearken you back to a time when beauty just simply was. It was rarely photoshopped, starved nor glitzy.
But I should critique myself here, for does real beauty ever really fade. That is the question. The feverish man inside me, says "yes". The quiet-willed poet inside me says, "no".
"A thing of beauty is a joy forever", the wonder boy Keats wrote. Maybe real beauty is permanence.

No matter how your eyes may now rock the hearts of men. Winter shall come.

I had the likely fortune to meet an old woman of celebrated repute. For Mrs. Wheeler is now the last surviving widow of a WWI veteran. Times keep passing. The old wars that were once faintly echoed in my childhood, are now relics of a forgotten age. When I first drove up to her drive, I found her unassuming. She was sitting in a chair in the carport, and a brief interaction, spelled out for me someone half-deaf, going bald, and not in her sharpest form. I knew that I had to get my information from her caretaker. Who in my book was another elderly lady, though there was a vast difference in the age of the two. I was invited in and sat down on a couch. The caretaker was intent on getting through the interview, but this ancient woman would approach me, leaning over, and would say in a quiet voice, "What is it that you are doing?" I couldn't tell by the tone if this was an attempt at a guard-dog stance of authority wrought soft by feebleness, or if she was just curious and wanting to make chit-chat. The caretaker had to yell that I was the Census. For anything that I said to her wasn't heard. I have a real fault sometimes of not being able tp speak out loudly. And I proudly admit that it is not in my nature to yell at old people.

This lady was only in her nineties. "Only" is an indication of the theme. For this lady to be able to be a widow to a WWI veteran, if you do the math, then she would have to be much older. She was born in 1915. That would make her a small child at the outbreak of the Great War. But you must understand while she was in diapers or whatever they used back then, her future husband was carrying a bayonet in a trench. For she ended up marrying a man that was 22 years older than her. And this was long after the War, almost into the 2nd horrific war of that century.
So, it was by this age gap that I had the good fortune of meeting this widow of an old Bosch-fighting warrior.
At this I responded in surprise, commenting on the age difference, and then something peculiar happened. This ancient lady, seemed to shake out the dust and the cobwebs from her mind, and a radiant child beamed. Champagne bubbled in her eyes. Somewhere, I am sure, a star sparkled. And she spoke, "Yes, everyone said that it would never work....but we were the happiest couple around!" She said this with such zest and lively joy that I've had half a mind to go about prowling elementary playgrounds intent on finding my soulmate too. (That's a joke. I'm sure you get the point. Don't call the police.)
I left feeling so very fortune to actually meet the last surviving widow of a WWI veteran.

The next lady is my favorite. Since, first visiting her...I've repeated my visits numerous times being fed with Cookies, Klondike Bars, and Coca-Cola, and hearing her stories. She lives off a main road that sees alot of traffic. And refuses to move even if her family urges her to do so. No, for her and her husband lived here since the 50's and this is home. They used to have a little grocery store adjoined to their building where I'd imagined old flatbed trucks would drive up and people would get their produce (the ones that they didn't grow themselves) and Coca-Cola. She said that whenever she goes to town nowadays, black women will come up to her and hug her. For they all remember her. Back before segregation she would give the black children all kinds of little snacks. Color of a person never mattered to her.
And these children would grow up and remember her.
She talked often enough of her husband. Said that he was a quiet man and he ended up falling on one knee within a week of knowing her asking her hand for marriage. At the time, she thought it was a joke. She laughed and told him to get up. I mean, who proposes to someone after only a week of knowing them? This man was so offended at not being taken serious and so he left town without saying a word to this dame he was after. She got curious about his disappearance and wrote a letter to him. He responded that was absolutely serious and not joking that he really wanted her to be his wife. So she said "Yes" and they lived the rest of their lives together. She would comment on their records that she still has, that they would play together on the record player and they would dance on special nights in this same house.
They also, through the years would turn their house/grocery store into a voting booth during election time. They'd be up for hours counting ballots and people coming from all the different meadows and woods to put their vote in. It was exciting.
Lately, this woman though, in her old age, has found her health going bad. Her struggle with cancer has been heroic. The startling thing is that at one time she had cancer all over her, the doctors at UAB in Birmingham were stumped when she showed up without a trace of cancer inside her. Her secret...the prayers of her church. The doctors now refer to her as "The Miracle Lady".

The 3rd lady, I will mention briefly for it was her that seemed a bit more bitter than these other two. She was not that old. Only in her late 60's. Maybe early 70's. And just went on talking about how she didn't care to put up with anybody. And that she had once gone to the fair with this 70 year old man and later she saw him at Walmart being a greeter and when he approached to give her a hug, she wouldn't let him because she was certain that he was going to grab her boob. I laughed at this. And she said that I don't know the half of it. That there is this entire culture of old men that drag old ladies on dates in order to bunk with them the same night. At which, I'm thinking how come no one portrays this side, the aftermath, of the Sexual Revolution?

Well, that's that.

Getting Mooned By a Redneck, When All that I was Doing Was My Job

2010-05-21T15:17:00.000-07:00

I was winding my way down neglected roads, named after various creeks in St. Clair County, Alabama. I had already had an interesting adventure hopping upon a hidden trailer off a dirt road, where it looked abandoned or like someone was squatting inside or hiding from the law, but I couldn't make my entrance; all the doors were locked and most of the windows had something draped over it like curtains. And I figured that I could be being watched. Though, I doubted it. I went back to my car. And in the abandoned mailbox found old mail. That led me on the to both the name of the person who used to live there and the actual address of the place. My job takes on the form of detective work occassionally. But this is perhaps the making of another story..

The next house that I came to on Dry Creek Road was the making of my tale. It was a house quite in the backwoods style, of having various assortments of junk, all different random items strewn about the place. It's as though, these people have yard competitions to see who can have the most random pieces of useless junk scattered throughout the yard.

The address number to this house, was not in my binder. (The people who made these binders did a shoddy job of it.) And I was sifting through my maps trying to make sure that this particular house was the one that I needed to interview. As I did so, parked in the road, several older kids in the back of this house, saw me and took me to be some sort of spectacle. I don't know why. The youngest little brat, in the distance, bowed up like he was challenging me. Little did he know that I would pull in his driveway. Again, sitting in their drive, singing along with Waylon Jennings in my car, trying to find the forms for this address which was not listed, it took a little time. And whenever I perceive that the people are immediately distrustful and impatient, there is a part of me, that likes making them even more suspicious and impatient. One of the boys watching me, goes inside his house and gets his pa.

Papa Bear comes out wearing nothing but pants and shoes, and from the look on his face and the great volume of his protruding stomach, it looks as though he likes to swallow whole and let digest in that bountiful sack of his, unfortunate intruders who sit in their car in his driveway. I take this as a cue to hop out and give a soothing salutation, that I am not a robber, a terrorist, or even Muslim. Usually, I can win them over with my affability. Sometimes, I can't.

After confirming the address, and when I kick off the first question, he shoos me saying that he doesn't want to have anything to do with this. I proceed on in an unarming way. He then points at his driveway and bellows out, "You see that! Now, you know the way out of here! Go on, Git!" or some such Jedd Clampett imperative. I swirl around back to my car, and say, quite vexed at his tone with me,"Okay, but you can be fined. Just warning you."
He gasps and then yelps something incomprehensible, but the end I hear."There ain't nuthin but 6 people livin' here."

I raise my binder and pencil and then ask, "So do you have any names for these 6 people?"

He blurts out, "Why, yep...that's Abe Lincoln, there's Moe, Larry, Curly." His boys chuckle. And I seize the sarcasm to make my own jab at his shirtless jelly belly, and him being an ignoramus, "So you must be Curly, right?"

At this he stood cut to the quick, and could find no suitable response, but to turn around suddenly and drop his drawers. Fortunately, I could see it coming, and covered my eyes before the ghastly sight. His children looked on and laughed, maybe even hoorahed. I couldn't hide my own laughter and just belted out that "Alright, you win. I'm outta here. I don't want to see that." I got in my car and drove off. Though, looking back, I wish I would have had the presence of mind to say, "Now which ass do you want me to be talking to?" But who can compose themselves under such revolting circumstances.

A Coffee Break

2010-05-05T09:57:00.000-07:00

Here is another submission into the Coffee Shop Chronicles. The rules were to write a story that had coffee in it. So I wrote the following. Oh, and I should probably warn you that I am not quite as neurotic as the main character. I exaggerated him a good deal from my own OCD habits.

Dennis sat fidgety behind his office cubicle with the last dregs of his morning coffee about to be swirling in the maelstrom that was his uneasy stomach. His was a fidgety existence. He had forgotten to take his anti-anxiety pills that morning and he could already feel the effects. Should he go for a 2nd cup of coffee or should he wait it out. What if people thought that he was severely addicted to coffee? Or that he was merely trying to find an excuse not to work. Besides Marlo had seen him amble up to the coffee pot the first time, only a mere 10 minutes ago, what if she happened to see him this 2nd time? And Marlo, as the entire office knew liked to squawk to everyone about everyone else.

Dennis had a severe anxiety disorder, diagnosed straight from Dr. Rosenfeld, that kept him from enjoying the normal things in life, like dating, having pets (particularly rabbits), flossing, cooking bacon with short sleeves on, carrying scissors, etc. But what made Dennis particularly nervous was intense social interactions. He could have deep conversations. But small talk frightened him so much that he oftentimes hid when the loquacious currier boy made his rounds about the office. Many people thought he was afraid of elevators. This was not the case; he just dreaded the light conversation that is often to be expected inside elevators.

Occassionally, in a sublime moment, Dennis could look the fear straight in the eye and go through with the very thing that he was dreading. But not without certain rituals. It is apparent to the reader that Dennis had Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder or OCD. If he was dialing a number to talk to someone important, he would have to press an uninterrupted sequence of dial punches. If he made a mistake, he would have to hang up the phone and start over again. Or else, he feared he may actually cuss out the important person on the other end; call that person's mother all types of nasty things. This whole anxiety was as though, he wasn't really in control of himself. So, he had horrible, conscience-slicing thoughts that crept up in his mind, and he had to go through with these strange rituals in order to get rid of the thoughts. And usually these thoughts were never something that he would ever actually do. Somewhere deep down inside himself, though, he fooled himself into thinking that he was capable of such things.

Dennis decided to be bold and make that trip to the coffee pot down the hall. This was only after many clickings of his mouse. Usually an even number. He proceeded down the ominous hall, with empty coffee cup, his neck and back arched in a strange tension, that he wasn't aware of. He was lucky. He made it down without anyone really noticing, and, so chastised himself for being so paranoid about meeting people. "Why am I such a weirdo?" he asked himself, as he poured a hot, frothing cascade into his styrofoam cup. The coffee appeared to be a fresh batch. As though someone had just made it. Steam rose up cautioning Dennis to wait a few minutes before he took his first sip. But just then, he happened to turn and see the head of the company walking his way.

He flustered. What was he to do? This was not merely his boss. But his boss's boss. The guy always referred to as the lead lion, who was usually altogether hidden from peon sight, unless to make important announcements. He was regal and seemed to glitter with the golden rings on his fingers, as well as the glimmering of his tie pin. Dennis wanted to leave. But he couldn't. He could never leave without adding sugar and creamer. Not that he really cared for the difference of the taste. It was more so that something catastrophic didn't happen. "What if my boss is marching over here to tell me I'm fired? This may happen if I do not pour sugar and creamer in." Such is the mind of an severe OCD sufferer. While, Dennis cringed and frantically doctored his coffee up, he thought about his boss. He pondered his power and authority, his high achievement, but also how this boss was actually a good man and how he gave some of his wealth away to charities and how nice a guy he was. Yes, he was a man that commanded one's reverence. But then the thought resounded in Dennis' head. -A thought that his poor anxiety disorder had orchestrated in order to make Dennis sweat. "What if I poured coffee in my boss's face?"

And Dennis could not get the thought out of his head. What if he really lost control of himself and splashed this hot, simmering coffee in the face of the CEO of his company? Dennis was paralyzed. He could barely continue to stir his coffee. Not that Dennis detested this man. No, as was stated before, his mind had an acute way of tormenting him. It was the fact that such an act was to be appalled at. And he would never ever want to do this. Or did he? And then, a strength that he had never known before gripped him. He blinked and a voice not altogether himself asserted itself, from somewhere in the tense cobwebs of his heated brain.

In truth, his mind bounced back and forth. "Why is man so set on self-destruction? Give a person ample fortutious opportunities and he will dodge each one of them and learn how to destroy himself and ruin his life as a result. But where is the glory of man? Why," Dennis thought, "it's in his ability to make his thoughts a reality. -To make what is merely imagination an actual outcome. Without that, we are merely shadows of our own dreams and not real."

"What man, can actually control his own thoughts? Better yet, what brave man, a true man will surpass the fear that so surrounds him, and actually make the strangest, most absurd thought a real, life act? That act, no matter how trivial is genius. What if I said to my conscience, 'Screw you!' What if I decide not to be tormented by you? I abhor this job. These people. My self." And with that Dennis splashed his piping hot coffee straight into the CEO's face and then fell to his knees and began to sob uncontrollably.

A Poem to My Niece

2010-04-18T13:17:00.000-07:00

The below poem was written in response to an invitation from my brother's blog http://jamesbrett.wordpress.com/ , where he wanted me to write a poem for National Poetry Month. He took a risk and gave me free reign to write about anything that I wanted to. I decided that no better topic was suitable than Baylor Adelaide Harrison. This was the daughter born to my brother back in December. My niece who I have yet to see. If you don't know already, my brother and his wife are living as missionaries in Tanzania. And I have yet to visit them. So I dedicate this poem to Baylor. But as I began to write it I noticed I began to focus more on my own spiritual longing for rebirth. A sense where the innocence, the wonder, the connectedness to everything was still alive and vibrant and seemed to illuminate all the senses. It isn't a stretch to make the connection, that maybe I was writing about two babies. One being Baylor, the other as i find resonating in the lines, the Christ Child, the Savior of the World. But we poets barely notice what we are writing til later. We just feel powerful surges and try to chisel out images. Needless to say, there is definitely more than one way to read this poem.

-To Baylor

In truth, I cannot at all recall,

What that elusive time was like for me.

Who does? Everyone is striving to stall,

The end scene, that we forget to be,

And a haze falls over our fabled birth,

Robbing us of every moment's mirth.

But you were born across the shifting sea,

The sun that spills out your rosy morning,

Tears himself from our darkened company,

And those distant waves that once were forming,

Now break in storm, to our shadowed shore.

Telling us of you, the gladness that the wind bore.

But in pictures, I have only known you,

And what gushing mothers have seen, and skype.

And these tell of wakening eyes of blissful blue,

Of morning sands, the sea's joy, the earth's hype,

Music we all did hear, when the spheres had sung,

God was near, when the world was young.

What world of soft bliss have your eyes known?

When every breath breathes with Heaven mingle,

And the morning stars sang their silver tone,

And to have a heartbeat is to tingle,

With luxuriant Creation, the Sublime,

That heart-wrenching vision of the Divine.

The Blue Parakeet

2010-03-13T10:27:00.000-08:00

The below publication was an accident. What I mean by that is that I tend to write ficitional stories and save them in this blog without publishing them. Mainly because this blog is great at automatically saving, so if something goes wrong as it always does with computers. My writing is usually already saved. In this case, I was writing a short story for another blog that had to be about "coffee". So I wrote the following fictional piece and then when I finished, I, without thinking pressed the published button. Though, instead of deleting it, I decided just to keep it here.

Demetri stared and squinted at the dicey production his paintbrush had given birth to. He had been trying to paint the same blue parakeet for weeks now. A trying time he was having; he couldn't make what was ordinarily a striking color within nature zing on the canvas. It was as though the blueness was a mystery, the depths that ranged in the skies or down in the swelling seas, and he could not gather one little drop of it from either place and fill this two-dimensional parakeet with that revitalizing color of serenity and grandeur. It seemed that with every other brushstroke, the painter, was saying, "There you are. Now, go! Fly, little birdie." But the birdie never flew, it only stood there perched inside the drawing as though oblivious to the fact that it had wings. Perhaps the fact that it was an attempt at capturing the essence of the bird, caused the work of art to be caged.

The tropics, one would think, should be inspiring. That was why Demetri had moved down to Central America. He had grown helplessly exhausted of the suburban sprawl of indulgent America. He had to break free from where the people's main cause of excitement was the opening of a shopping complex. Like Ganguin sick of Paris and embarking for Tahiti, Demetri was intent on finding that perennial Eden with his oils and pastels. And so, he found himself in Costa Rica among the coffee plantations.

Though, search he did, he never could find the correct inner vision that was necessary to transform basic rudimentaries from the earth (common pigments, flinseed oils, etc.) to an ecstatic vision and union with Paradise. The irony was bittersweet for Demetri was surrounded by the most inspiring visages of wild beauty. But such is the artist's agony, converting the dazzling ecstasy of the eye and soul to that blank, white, ominous canvas. -Transforming a love and observance of beauty into the flame of creation.

In the meantime, Demetri was growing haggard and thin. His was a fasting from practicality which left him scarce means of procuring food. Here he was, the exotic scarecrow, the epitome of the starving artist with rags, with bony knees and knuckles, wild-eyed, and wild-hair having abandoned society before it even had time to abandon him. He had all the requisites for being a great artist, except for great art.

Nourishment consisted of a few plaintains and bananas a day. All this, and he would constantly chew on coffee beans to ward off any severe craving for a hamburger. And also because he had heard that the author Balzac had done so to keep himself audaciously prolific.

But at all times, sitting to the side of his painting endeavors, he had this lone, rusty coffee mug, half-full of the richest, blackest drip, ground from the best coffee beans that that region had to offer. And Demetri detested this cup of coffee. Oh sure, he was diligent in his pursuit of draining that cup, and, of course, he'd fill it up again with that dark ambrosia, each and every time only half full. But for some reason, even though it coursed through his veins; he hated the stuff. No, not the taste, nor the aroma. These were beyond a doubt, wonderful. Maybe it was just the fact that that was all there was to drink. The coffee was much safer to drink than the water. Maybe, it was his reliance for physical sustenance that made his spirit resent its dependency on such a thing. But for somehow for whatever reason, it irked him to look down and see before him a black-as-night pool in that old, rusted, tin cup. Perhaps, if he would fill the cup up to the top that would've made all the difference. But most artists never think of solutions such as that.

It was the dull blackness of the coffee. For him, subconsciously, it represented all the drabness in the world, all the mundanity, all the triteness that he had attempted to escape from. And for some reason he equated it all to this half-cup of coffee, a cup that he had to drink from or perish.

Then one day, it befell his poor, ragamuffin, painter's lot, to run out of painter's materials stuck inside this little hut in rural Costa Rica. He had plenty of pigments, to give the painting color. He just lacked the necessary linseed oil to make it stick properly. It happened like this.

It a was another bold and beautiful day, the sun slashing its way through the leafy canopy. Bathing the portions of the inside of his hut in this golden light, sometimes tinged with a slight green from the rainforest canopy. He was mixing his paints and was reaching in this jar for the appropriate oil when he noticed there was not hardly a drop left. He could not paint without this oil for it was what kept the paint from running and dripping down the painting. This was the last straw. All his frustration broke loose in this moment and he flew into a rage. Angry that this was a symbol for his own soul, that his creative well had run dry. And in the middle of his wild temper tantrum, he flung the can with all his paintbrushes across the room. With a resounding ding, they hit his loathsome cup of coffee and it toppled over and flecked dark coffee onto his tiring work of art, the flightless Blue Parakeet. At first, this was about to cause a further eruption at the result of this coffee and how it and what it represented had immersed he and his aspirations. When, a slight pause of emotion, caused him to notice something peculair about the painting with the coffee stains on it. The coffee had combined with the bright blue color, causing it to reveal this accentuating hue. It was as though just a bit of shadow caused it to become real. Demetri marvelled at this. Picked up the portrait and held it in the light pouring in from the window.

"Yes, this is it." he thought. It would actually be the appropriate oil to keep the pigments from running. He ran to his coffee pot and this time filled up his abused coffee cup to the brink. And began mixing the coffee into his pigments. And then he began to paint.

All the rest of that day, he painted, and all the rest of that night he painted as well. The next morning about 10 o clock, he slept and then he woke up again and returned to his easel. There was no increments to his day other than the projects he was working on. Other than that. He sleep when he had to and ate when he had to, while continually sipping the black coffee that had made his revelation. He had finished the blue parakeet. And it was astonishing. The potrait hung majestically over his bed, ravishing in the tropical sunbeams that came cascading into his room. He began to go further afield within himself finding ample archetypal themes and epic stories, Theseus in the Cretan labyrinth killing the Minotaur, Odysseus in Polyphemus' lair, King Arthur's confrontation with Morgan Le Fey, King David mourning over Absalom. Down into the stories did Dmitri dare to go, capturing the images and the power of the drama. His use of shadowing opened the cage that he was stuck inside. His spilled coffee freeing his inner vision. And this vision flew, between the heights of the skies and the depths of the sea, magnificently between Paradise and the world that is.

How My Whole Life is Pointing at Me to be a Cheesy, Romance Trash Novelist

2010-03-03T07:26:00.000-08:00

...simply because of that fine, quizzical, curious feature on Craigslist called "Missed Connections". For those of you familiar with this feature, I am sure your eyebrows raise in jocular arcs above your knowing and anticipatory eyes.

For those of you unaware, let me put it like this...picture if you will, that you are about your daily business in the throes of mundanity, you could be in the dairy section getting milk at Publix or some such scenario. And you could very well catch the eye of someone across the aisle getting their orange juice, or they could instead be catching your eye. And still, ideally, as we'd all would have it ...you, the "milk boy" and they, the "orange juice girl" would catch each other's eyes. Of course, as experience tends to proclaim, it is extremely awkward to strike up conversation with the Orange Juice Girl. There being not much to talk about other than preference of breakfast beverages. -But yet, something still remains as you walk back towards the check out line. A sort of residue of possibility. It is sort of a light feeling, though sometimes heavy. And you may not be aware of it, and it is only when you are waiting in the checkout line in between the packs of gum and the tabloids, then it suddenly becomes known and hits you that, "Yes, I could possibly fall in love with the Orange Juice Girl." And if anyone has a pestilent and feverish imagination like myself, then a whole string of flickering scenarios of intimacy, of fights, of make ups, of babies born, of retirement fall out. And it is only when you get home, with the fridge door ajar, placing that very carton of milk which caused the whole thing away, that you realize that she was a complete stranger and you'll probably never see that beautiful damsel, the Fair Lady of the Squeezed Oranges ever again. -What distress and a sinking feeling falls. You'll forever drink that carton of milk with slight indigestion.

Unless of course, you have what the brilliant makers of Craigslist put on their website. This Missed Connection feature allows you the chance, the slight chance however slim, to make the connection that didn't happen admist the waxed floors and the rattling shopping carts in Publix. And if you are given to words as a sort of expression then you can describe as colorfully as you'd like the feeling you got, when you saw her on aisle 7, the particular song that was converted to elevator music playing overhead during that moment, even venturing to describe the other items in her cart. And that you too like celery sticks and yogurt. (or at least can tolerate them if ever the two of you ever hooked up.) And of course, if you are lucky and the stars are aligned in this situation, even better than expressing your own take on this fateful encounter in the dairy/juice department, what if you should find that she had beaten you to the punch. What a sublime feeling to scan through the posts of the day and find the title, "Got Milk?" and this little piece to be nothing other than an ad about you.

Well, Craigslists Missed Connections allows you to do this. My sister had told me about it years ago. But I haven't looked into it until recently. And I found it to be true. I showed it to a friend of mine and she immediately thought that it would be funny to post a fake ad where someone was looking for me. http://bham.craigslist.org/mis/1615301748.html
And I was curious to see if anybody responded. Which lo and behold only in a few days, another friend of mine had noticed it.

But then, something interesting happened with myself. I began to notice that I was making my own missed connections in chance circumstances with mysterious women. That every day or two there was a beautiful lady in the midst of a common life that was worthy of a shout out So, I, of course, could not resist the newfangled ability to publish my own passing, fanciful crushes on females that I probably will never see again. I wrote two ads, and, oh, I indulged in cheesiness, abounded in lameness in both letters. Just for experiment's sake and because it was so much fun to do. As a game, let's see if anybody can guess which 2 posts are mine. It was only in the past week that I published them and I'll only give you the hint of "Nature" that sums up both of them. http://bham.craigslist.org/search/mis/?query=m4w

Both incidents actually occurred. And at this rate, I think if I really forced myself I could fall in love with a different stranger every day. Leisurely, as least once a week. Now you can easily see how I can be writing snippets of what could one day be romance trash novels that are supplied in those very Publix stores where Orange Juice and Milk exist together in starry-eyed bliss.

Finally, A Procrastinator's Confession

2009-12-01T14:41:00.000-08:00

A little Poem to break the idleness: Ahem Ahem.

All our hopes and dreams and plans and schemes,
Are locked within a thing,
We call tomorrow.

And all the joys we glean, which we smile and sing,
Seemed to be wringed from the future dream,
We borrow.

But despair is seen in this tiring stream,
Of robbed, ransacked means, to which we cling,
Our dear possession -sorrow.

A Poem for Communion

2009-11-24T16:17:00.001-08:00

It was shot to me Saturday. Ken Haynes called me up during the Alabama game and asked me to write something for Church the next day. Specifically, for Communion.

Now, let me brag a little bit about the church that I go to. Somehow along down the way, I met a group of Christians that really understood that the Formula is not the key to the Divine. All to often the Formula gets in the way of the Divine. It is interesting because most of the people of my church came out of traditions where Formula was of the utmost concern, in short, the people mistook Formula or Pattern for God. It was their way of accessing Him. Henceforth, the way of apprehending God quickly becomes a God.
Now, here I want to designate that when I write Formula, I in no way mean Ritual. They are two different things. Ritual is an experiential factor, a real life and blood incident. It's where Ideas meet Flesh. Without them we rob ourselves of symbols, without symbols we might as well become empirical atheists. Rituals create balance between our bodies, our minds, and our emotions. Because we are all off center to some degree or another.
Formulas on the other hand are all mental for the most part. That is, they are all meant to ascribe to a certain logical order that appeases God or the idea that they think God is. Ritual, however, actualizes God in the here and now. It points to His nearness, but also His transcendence and how any idea we have of God is never sufficient.

Anyways, I didn't mean to go all out on a harangue about formulas and what not. I just meant to point out how wonderful and revitalizing it is that my church can call someone up and give free creative liberty for Communion on the following Sunday. And most people would agree that giving me, such creative liberty, is a frightful thing.

So, I felt a pull to write a poem for Eucharist. But you know how it goes, I may write a few lines here or there. But quickly push my notebook aside to go find something else to do. The inspiration must strike. Or else, I am in the delusion in thinking so. And Saturday evening, I could not make the work flow. I was staying in the church that night and I couldn't write even with the silence that was finally accessible.

I recall getting quite irate about the whole thing. And leaving in a rush. I could not write a "Religious Piece" in a church. So, I did what I had to do. I drove to a nearby bar, a billiards bar, where loud music was playing, a poker match was on the television, and people were drinking and shooting pool. I ordered a pint of Guinness, sat down at the bar, placed some earplugs in my ears to make the music a little more bearable. And began to write. It didn't naturally flow out, but I did start to get something down. It took me a little while and many inky cross outs until I was finished. I would take breaks every now and then where I would watch the poker game on TV, observing all the "pool champions" strutting tall, and occassionally, receiving smiles from the female bartenders.

It seems to me that I needed a paradox itself to throw me into inspiration for writing about the biggest Paradox of all. Thus writing a highly spiritual piece in a bar, with the music overhead singing about women's booties, and the smell of alchohol issuing from the barstools. The below was my attempt.

For those in the midst of darkened dreams,
When the blackened skies have emptied out the stars,
And the moon has directed its broken-silver beams,
Only on the cut, the wounds, those howling, hurting scars,

For those pierced by the silence of the skies,
And the lonely, desperate moaning of the earth,
When humanity's existence breathes out troubled sighs,
All this, a soul's reading of its sad, neglected worth,

For those of us, who have endeavored to steal,
The light from the Heavens and call it our own,
And rage our phantom egos against thy holy will,
We, all, now fall before your ever-so-present throne.

For the times that we feel that shivering absence,
We eat this bread.
And we know that on this, your Holy Substance,
We, are now, our hungry spirits fed.
May it also consume us with your Pure Presence,
As we mourn our egos dead.

And for our lives that are poured out in pride,
We take up this wine,
Knowing it has gushed from your stricken side,
Bleeding for our narcissistic shrines,
Now may it fill us with the One who has died,
But, yet lives, the Lord of All Times.

And from this feast of unquenchable love,
Let us open our hearts to this precious mystery,
God is now within us, as well as stretched high, far above,
And our past lives, like a half-dreamt history.

Being Creative and Its Result and Embarrassment; My Weirdness Revealed

2009-10-08T11:08:00.001-07:00

I find the secret to any creative endeavor is a swirling descent into an uncharted, undiscovered world. It is a frantic maelstrom into the fascinations and associations of the psyche into the boundless imagination. But stay on this wild course. The pathway to some higher act of collision between insight and fantasy lies in the act of purely slapping down whatever comes to mind and worrying about the silly editing later. If at all.

So day after day, I have buffeted myself with the whimsical task of writing 3 pages daily. Some of it nonsense. Most of it, detailing the dreams that I had the night before. You could say that it is my log into the airy realms of the surreal and sublime. Though, my dreams, are really not all that strange. Compared to the way that I would make them up if I had the chance. Perhaps, my fantasy-fevered brain is already at overwork on such fanciful cinemas during my waking life that when the night curtains do fall and my brain goes to a sort of soft repose, my unconscious psyche goes easy on the images and easy on the content. For those of you that have studied Jung, you are aware of the balancing act between the conscious and the unconscious.. And you will also know that this dream-vigilance can serve as a sort of window into one’s soul. –Stained glass and with all types of significant relics etched in the glass.

But enough of that. I do not wish to show you any of these dreams. I care only to express my strivings with a particular, grueling sense of writer’s block. Whereas the creativity is locked in a stagnate mold and any sense of inspiration has withered away like a cursed fig tree.

So I began to skirt these deep waters. And even plunging a time or two. It is the artistic temperament to do so. And I realized how easy it was to find myself into a place where lightning and seas connected. And who knows maybe some paper could be splashed with some ink.

I ventured out on a proposal. I put as my status, that anyone could give me a topic, any topic and I would turn around and make a story out of it. I was throwing open those ominious doors of the unconscious, stooping myself in the shadow figures and watching them dance. I had dropped the quill-pushing gauntlet, and sounded off the blazoned challenge. Give me any situation and I would answer and turn around and scribble off a story about it. It was my way of fighting off lethargy. –Of stabbing vile procrastination.
And for once heaping upon myself task after task after task. Something that my natural disposition grows squeamish even thinking about. But I felt it was all very necessary. I shall saturate myself in the realm of Story. I told myself. Well, something to that effect. Maybe a little less dramatic. But so steep myself in the creative process that I do not notice how much I am working and for what little returns. This is the antidote for my slothful ennui.

I must confess, to the reader, that my success was only limited to the first few days. After that, my natural inclination snuck upon me…and to this day, 2 weeks later, I have 2 short stories still due. But I will get to them one day…(Well, you know this talk.)

Almost 10 short story themes came in. And I set at work on them at once.
The keys started clicking the storylines out. Storylines such as wandering haplessly on the moon. –To describing a bunch of men that mysteriously change into bears taking over the Californian frontier. And then there was the tale of me being a sort of spy for the Churches of Christ. It was limitless. And the pure strategy for me was to flip around the ideas they gave me, and give them something back wholly unexpected.

But who would guess that I got too caught up in this process when I wrote my 2nd story that I lost track of myself.
It was an innocent enough storyline…Prompted by Lance Owens. Lance wanted a tale that was about me having the ability to regenerate limbs. Yes, pretty simple. Though, a little weird. But to his defense, I insisted they give me a challenge. And in the creative world, that means it really must be weird. So perhaps, Lance thought long and hard about it, or perhaps Lance was mulling over “Gee, I wonder what it would be like to be able to regenerate limbs” earlier that morning. But either way, Lance threw the story situation at me and uttered, “Go!”.

So I went. And the story started off much like a fairy tale does. I was the protagonist with this serious lament, reiterating my travails of misfortune. Where me and this character (who was based on Lance, himself) were backpacking across Spain. (Doing the pilgrimage that I didn’t do while really in Spain this summer.) And sure enough, through the meeting of a holy saint and the kissing of an archaic relic, I was given the ability to regenerate limbs. Easy enough. Nothing too out of the ordinary yet. –In legend story-telling that is. I had set myself up for the acquisition of this gift in a traditional frame. The Quest. And now I was to further the story, detailing what I precisely did with this “gift”.

And of course, my untamed imagination, galloped away on this one. So I wanted to make it humorous and completely fantastical. None of this realistic nonsense. So, I made it to where I was sort of a cursed King Midas. But instead of gold, if I touched a person, an extra limb would grow out of that person. Yes, it was bizarrely fantastical. And I wasn’t going to let that inner critic, the stealer of many a creative urge, stamp out any such idea just because it was too strange and unlikely.

So I worked away. Detailing how tragic it was at first. How alienating it was having such an ability. And the only way to really cope with it was by taking to the shadows of the streets and becoming a sort of superhero. To fight crime and set the world at right.

Lurking among the alleyways of the criminal streets, I would pop out to make right the corrupt wrong, touching the odious culprits in various places, where to their horror an extra arm or leg would sprout.

It was an altogether juvenile fiction. The sort of thing that an 8 year old might draw pictures of with a box of broken Crayolas. But I wasn’t letting my adult mind worry about the maturation level or the ridiculousness of it all. No, that was the whole point of this exercise. To let myself go.
So further and further into the back streets of absurdity did this story travel. Until, I got to the point where I even had a two-headed archenemy whom I had accidentally made years before with my regenerative curse/ability. And how he and his henchmen wronged me and the world so sorely that I became a full-fledged avenger and I executed this vengeance by slapping these henchmen on the forehead and making genitalia sprout from their heads, followed by a fierce judo-chop right in their new, ungainly appendage which sent them to keel over in grotesque agony. And then they were forced to go through life with obnoxious penises attached to their foreheads. The End. That was it. Just as weird as could be. And of course, I didn’t make any bones about it. I simply regarded it as a surreal detour with the given story topic. With its completion, I turned around to mail it off to Lance. It was just a whacky tale between two guys with a warped bathroom humor twist at the end. I just needed Lance’s email. I found it in my inbox on something he had sent out to a group of people. I hit reply on the message. Copied my strange story to it. And then mashed ‘Send’. No explanation. No introduction. Only the title, “Your Limb Regeneration Story”. And I am sure that Lance would understand its content. What I didn’t foresee until it was all too late, was that it was being sent to everybody on the list serve. Many who would be at odds to make sense of the story. Like about 200 people or so. And every single one of them, except Lance, was probably really confused by this random, unexplained story from me about genitals growing out of people’s heads. I tell you, I was so embarrassed. I immediately sent a follow up to the story on the same list serve to recommend that people entirely disregard this story. That it was a clumsy faux pas on my part. And of course it had the ironic result that anything has when you tell people to not do something; they immediately become curious. So my weirdness was apparently known to all to my chagrin. And I thought all this while I had hid it pretty well.

Things I Learned in the Tomato War

2009-09-10T16:25:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am now a lived, tried, and tomato-initiated survivor of the world’s largest food fight. My war stories are numerous; my scars though few. This is how it all goes down.

If you can get to the little village of Bunol, Spain the 3rd Wednesday of August then you can contribute to the tomato-shed. Whoever thought the idea, to throw tomatoes at one another for a festival was a genius. Now, these brilliant war hawks of the produce section have caused this little town outside of Valencia to swell with tourists at the end of August every year. Thus boosting tourism in an unlikely place, and giving a tiny dot, a place and an identity on a world map. I think that I shall do the same for my hometown of Dothan and introduce to them the idea of throwing their claim to fame, peanuts at one another. And maybe the same thing will happen.

But no, the history of this tradition in Bunol goes back only 50 or 60 years ago. When it was believed some politician was coming through town and the village people (the locals; not the band, though that would make an even more interesting story) didn’t like him, or his speech, so they began to throw tomatoes at the poor fellow. (At least it was tomatoes thrown back then and not BS about fictitious “death panels”.) Well, the next year came up and I could see the locals collaborating and thinking, “Gee, that was so much fun last year. Why don’t we do it again this year? What politician is coming through town this time?” But after being told that no politician was coming through town. (I could see why most politicians would omit it from their circuits.) they decided to just throw tomatoes anyway. I guess they figured that while, yes, smiting politicians with tomatoes may have been the most possible fun a person could have. That flinging tomatoes at one another is only a step down. -Seeing how it is usually each other who is behind the politician, and you may be able to pelt so-and-so, who voted for that particular politician. (I know a good many of people who’d like to throw tomatoes at the people who voted for Obama; but I also know some people who’d like to hurl pineapples at the people who voted for Bush.) Ah, the wonders of democracy. But truth be told, I don’t think that politics had anything to do with the tomato-tossing. Judging even the constant political mud-slinging that goes back and forth in our country, I think that bottom line, humanity has a innate proclivity to indulge in flinging crap at one another. And politics is usually just the excuse to do so. We either haven’t evolved very far or biblically our own best interests are pooey to the other guy. Probably both.

Now, the tomato festival has evolved into one of the biggest festivals in Spain. With tens of thousands of people flocking every year to this small town with a population of 10,000 people. There is much waiting and eager anticipation for the rocket to go off when it will be the first time in one’s life where it is perfectly alright and legal to pelt random strangers out in the streets with food. There seems to be only one rule and that is you must squish the tomato before you toss it. Although, during the whole fight, you were lucky to get your hands on a tomato that even remotely resembled its authentic shape. Half the thing you are throwing are fragments of tomatoes.

There are other things going on during this waiting period. Like for instance, in the city center this is this pole that is greased down and a large ham is tied to the top of it. Participants make a usually sloppy attempt at retrieving this ham by climbing up the greased pole, most of the time falling off or sliding back down. Then there was a space in the middle of the crowds where an opening occurred. Here, a group of guys waited for any unfortunate people to cross, if it was a guy than their shirt was usually ripped from them. Many of the guys at La Tomatina go shirtless. So this group found their kicks by seizing any guys with a shirt that crossed through their territory and just tearing their shirts off them. I watched from a distance with my shirt still on me. Mainly because I heard that the train back to Valencia doesn’t allow you to board without a shirt. And this was the only shirt I brought with me to Bunol. So, I was going to hold onto my shirt. But this spectacle with the shirt-ripping was entertaining to watch. Oftentimes, the guy was aware of what was going on until he was ganged up on and his shirt was in rags being thrown from the circle. Many times, I felt like if you descended into this circle then you deserved to have a good shirt torn from you, just because of not being observant. But many of the people who did walk into this circle did so with the full intention of going shirtless. Though, there was this one guy who strutted into the circle and when the shirt ripping committee advanced, he seemed outright ticked, and bowed up as though no one was going to rip his shirt from him without a fight. This insolence was repaid with a slap in the face from one of the shirtless group. And of course, the usual tax was seized with a rip. This about ignited a riot. Except, this alone guy was the one about to take on 4 or 5. He tried kicking and punching, but the shirt-ripping guys were all, fortunately, in a fun-loving mood, and only pushed him out of the circle to say that they didn’t care to fight it being tomato-throwing time.
When the rocket goes off, locals on the rooftops appear and begin to toss tomatoes on the people. It is only a handful tomatoes at a time. And it is pretty slow coming, and you think that it will be awhile until they have the streets awashed in tomato juice like in the pictures. But eventually, the tomato trucks arrive with people sitting in the back of the them flinging tomatoes every which way. Truck after truck roar in and begin to dump the tomatoes into the streets. The streets become saturated in ketchup.

I was not situated in the very heart, the very thick of it. And I really believed that I was missing out of the most intense experience of the fray. But as I found out later, I was possibly in the best position to be. Mainly, because when I ventured up to the heart of it. I found it impossible to move I was so surrounded by people. And I mean, move at all. Even when a tomato slapped my upper chest and fell to the ground at my feet, I couldn’t bend down to pick it up because I was jammed, people’s elbows on all sides. This lead me to believe that people in the very thick of it just stand around getting pummeled by tomatoes without being able to throw anything back. Not a whole lot of fun. Unless they catch one flying. Which I was able to do once. No, the most throwing I did was back a few yards away on a sort of raised patio area. This allowed me to see and take aim at more people. And it also allowed me to scurry about the place grabbing tomatoes. And I was pretty dexterous at it. There was only one time that my quick reflexes caused me some trouble. And that was when I stooped down to pick up a tomato that was just thrown and this girl wanting the tomato also, stepped on my hand. It didn’t hurt. But I aptly repaid her the gesture by giving her this tomato…that is my rubbing it all in her hair. Then, she retaliated by rubbing the fragments of the tomato on my lips when I wasn’t looking. But I seemed to take most of my targeting at people unawares back away from the main skirmish who were on the outskirts of it all. I was really doing these people a great favor because they had every intention of engaging in the melee, but few tomatoes found their way back that far.

As for military equipment, I was only armed with a pair of goggles, which I hardly used. For they fogged up real bad and it was always a difficult thing for me to see out of them. So I just situated them on my head. And I never suffered a tomato in the eye.

The only casualty to the war, well, the only one I heard about, were my flip-flops. I had heard that if you wore flip-flops in the fray you were sure to lose them because of stepping around in tomato paste. So, to avoid the prospect of going shoe-less on my journey back to Valencia, I slipped them off in a corner of this patio area. I did the fight barefoot. When, the battle was over, my flip-flops were gone. And I had to go barefoot the rest of the day. They were probably hurled out as ammunition. As tons of articles of clothing and other debris were also. In the aftermath of the war, the streets were strewn with this stuff, but I never found my flip-flops among the piles of rubbish steeped in tomato stew. As I walked about the main street after the fight, I walked to where the tomato juice lay like entire bodies of water, flooding whole portions of the street. People were skidding face first into the streams of marinara sauce. And if you weren’t dirty enough, they yelled. “Limpio! Limpio!” and splattered you with the tomato juice. This happened to me and there was not sense in fighting it. The locals, meanwhile, were trying to clean people off by dangling water hoses from their balconies. After that one hour of tomato-chaos warfare, everyone began to go home in droves. Having not slept the night before, I waited awhile, even tried sleeping in the hot Spanish afternoon. But eventually, hopped on the train headed back towards Valencia.
Thus ends my foray into La Tomatina.

The Long Night Before the Big Tomato Fight

2009-09-06T14:27:00.000-07:00

There comes a time when traveling that one is sprawled out in a flea-infested bed, sweating from the sultry climate, wondering about the price of the place, whether he is getting gyped or not, contemplating this or that, perhaps in a state of loneliness, or at least heightened irritability, when he or she poses the question to him or herself, “What exactly am I doing here? Why am I here?” And this question cuts deeper than the usual existential ramifications that such questions have that we are all plagued with from time to time. But very poignantly, this question arises from the practical aspect of all the money that you are spending and all the miles that you have chalked up, to be in the strange, bizarre location that you find yourself, usually with discomfort, maybe with anxiety, and often times in isolation. “Goodness. So why did I come all this way? For this?” And the answer is usually never found in the quiet solitude, whether in your hostel room, out amongst the bustling faceless crowd, or even in the midst of tranquil nature, if I dare admit this last one which I esteem so much. No, the answer of what traveling is all about, is found elsewhere. For traveling isn’t about this mountain or that sea, or this castle or that relic or masterpiece. No, traveling is always when you get right down to it, about the people you meet. And the very fun thing about this is they tend to be traveling too. Whether it be just down the street or around the globe. And yes, given existentially, everyone’s on some type of journey whether they think they are or not. We usually think that we are stuck, or perhaps worse, think we have arrived, until we meet someone else traveling. And from their worn-down soles, their footsteps whether jingling or thudding, we become aware of our own path and our voyage of all sorts. Not only of what rivers we have crossed or hills traversed, but what ice caverns and deserts lay before us. I may camp on the side of a star one day, though I may now tread the trench of an ocean floor. All these intersecting paths gives us perspective, but always something more complex that can only be seen in a multitude of nuances. There is perhaps only one geographical rule; there seems to be no terrain that is just strictly black and white.

How it was that we all assembled in one place was to be the fault of the famous Tomato Festival, at the end of August every year. 40, 000 meet in a small little town to throw tomatoes at one another. This is Spain. This is small town, festival life. This is La Tomatina. You may have seen videos on it. The people drenched in tomato paste, seeming to be swimming in river’s of blood. But having copious amounts of fun.
What a brilliant idea! The world’s largest food fight! And thousands of people flock to it every year.
The first character I met, was this fellow from London, though, his accent was purely American. He being born in NYC, and then carted off to the UK where he became a Londoner. As we waited on the train that would take us from Valencia to the little Spanish town of Bunol, where the notorious tomato festival takes place, he talked about being a sort of musician, writer, and film-maker in London. Which translated for him, a person who could barely afford to get to southwest Spain for this festival. He had hitchhiked all the way from Paris. And had arrived just in time to make it to Bunol the night before. Our strategies were similar. Take the 40 minute train ride the night before, get there for whatever festivities takes place early, (in Spain you can’t go wrong here.) and maybe either camp out or not sleep and the next day be early and ready for the tomato fight to commence. Though, I think he was really planning on sleeping that night, and I was going to once again forego it. Which I seem to do so well.

While we boarded the train. And yes, I did pay this time. Another chap comes up with his backpack, A guitar strapped to it. A patch of the Yellow Submarine cartoon Beatles stitched onto this guitar, and wearing a Bob Dylan T-shirt, (I knew I was going to like this guy.) sits down across from me. He had tufts of blonde curly hair issuing from underneath his cap. He was tall and lanky. Looked very lean, and was caring all types of sacks with him, what he lived off of mostly dried biscuits. We all fell into talking with one another. This guy’s name was Toby. He was Australian. And had been backpacking the past year around Europe. And never really wanted to go back home. Mainly because he thought how weird it would be to go sit on his friend’s couch and ponder things. How surreal it would be to have gone through so much that he has in the past year and go back home and realize that nothing has changed. He feared this feeling and so wanted to keep his foot on the road, or tracks, or whatever means of transportation in Europe. And I understood his feeling exactly, having many of those surreal “couch” experiences myself. Though, I don’t find them as dreadful. It would seem I’m addicted to them.

So the 3 of us sat on this train, conversing with one another as though we had known each other for a long time. Travelers are always this way. When Mike, the Londoner, began to tell us his long eventful story about hitch hiking from Paris and he being stuck in the very hot, and dead city of Zaragoza with no luck, and sweating madly.
He was a skilled story-teller. The kind that draws you in, focusing on the details and making you give your utmost attention. And just before he finishes, these 3 cute girls come and sit down near us. And just as the story is ended, we learn that they are all 3 students in Valencia. One is from the Czech Republic. And the two others are from Lisbon, Portugal. The Czech girl, with short blonde hair, is the most dominant one. And talkative. These two lovely dark Portuguese were much more quiet. Well, they issue into the conversation as well. Pretty soon, Mike is telling another story about some other festival he went to in Serbia. And everyone is listening to him. Mike is an expert talker. Highly extroverted. Got to have an audience. Probably a closet thespian.

We get to Bunol and the 6 of us, have already formed a sort of group. And we begin to march downtown. Where the action is to be the next morning. Both Mike and Toby brought all their luggage with them and wanted to stash it somewhere. But this turned out being much more difficult than we could imagine. We begin to make our descent downwards towards the city center. I walked beside the cutest Portuguese girl. Her name was Katerina. And we talked about Journalism, what she is studying in Valencia. The other Portuguese girl was much too quiet for me. While the Czech girl was too loud and bossy. Somewhere along the way, a group of German guys sort of attached to us. I think some of them were just after the 3 girls, though some were being cool and handing us free beer because we didn’t bring any with us. We get to the main area of the Tomato Festival and lots of dining tables are pulled out into the middle of the street. And families sharing and eating nice, fine-dining before the streets are to be caked in tomato debris. We sit down in the city center, when this group of another ragtag bunch of travelers next to us, start talking. I come to find out that they are couch-surfers. An online organization that I am apart of. Which I’ve only recently used, while in Ireland, me and some friends stayed at this man’s house, (surfed on his couch, so to speak) way out in the middle of nowhere.
What seemed to be the leader of this group was a Polish guy. Who was very social and nice. Right beside me, I noticed this other tall, lanky fellow, with a dark beard. He was carrying a hiking stick. And I saw etched on the stick, “Camina de Santiago”. And I grew excited. For this was the same pilgrimage up in Northern Spain that I had wanted to go on, but couldn’t because I had to catch a flight back to the States only a few weeks before. We began talking. I knew from his lilt, he was from Ireland. He was from Galway, Ireland. Where I had been earlier that summer. So we began chatting about this and that. And had I gone on that month long pilgrimage like I had intended I probably would have met him then and traveled with him for a number of days. But now, having missed the opportunity for the Way of St. James, I happen to meet this character just before La Tomatina. So interesting.

Well, all of us, begin to get antsy. We notice music being blasted nearby. And dancing people out in the street. So we rushed right over and began to join in. Now, it was actually some sort of wedding party, maybe a rehearsal dinner/ party for this local couple. But because it was La Tomatina and because they were Spanish and therefore festive, they didn’t mind the other throngs of people coming and joining in. So we all began to hit the dance floor. While still talking to one another. I met these two American guys who were from Jacksonville, FL. They had travelled on a yacht across the Atlantic to get here to Spain. By far, the most impressive way of getting to a place. Everyone must’ve danced what seemed to be hours, and as the Spanish goes, it was not winding down. I began to disperse, mainly because I had heard about other areas of town that were equally as festive, and I wanted to go explore. So I began walking. And somehow winded up getting far away from a lot of things. And found myself, trying to find a place, if not to sleep, to at least get some alone time. Yes, even in the midst of a thriving fiesta, I can be that guy, that needs to be alone. On occasion that is. So I climb the hill of the town. I find all types of little neat places to sleep. But as usual, sleep comes difficult in such circumstances, so I just lay there.

Eventually, even laying there gets me a second-wind. Sleep can be overrated. So, I desire to be around people again. So, I make a rush to find some of my compadres. It’s after 3 and the streets are thinning. I find a group of ours left. The 3 girls were among them and Toby. Mike had earlier gone off to find a patch of ground to try to sleep on.
These girls looked as though they were desiring sleep. So I told them that I knew of a place. Quieter and out of the way of everything. Toby started digging through some trash, finding old cardboard boxes to make sleeping mats out for us, and the 5 of us went trudging up this hill. I felt sort of bad for leading up a great distance for a nap when climbing up hill was so tiresome for them. But oh well. I showed them this place underneath the stars, that I had previously found before. And we had just laid our mats down, when the notion that I wanted some water crossed my mind. And I asked, “Does anyone else want any water?” At which Toby, chimed, “Yeah, I’ll go with you.” And all the girls wanted water. So it turned out to be this quest for a very chivalric thing of getting water for these ladies. Toby asked if they would like some teddy bears for the night also. At which they said they did. So I and this Australian went in search of some waters, with an eye out for any teddy bears that we may run across. I figured that we could just make a short trip down the hill to fetch the water and we’d be back in no time. But Toby didn’t like the idea of having to hike up that steep hill again, so we figured that the train station was not too far away. We just had to find it through some of these weaving streets. So we began walking this way and that talking. When we came out and noticed the train station off in the distance. And the quickest way to get to it was by walking on the railroad tracks. So about 4 or so in the morning, here we were scooting down railroad tracks and nearby it seemed some late night club was going on, playing very loud and horrible techno music. Toby began to complain. And I consented and we both began to talk about Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash, how what we both were doing, walking on a train line would both be sung about in their songs. We finally got the water, and then turned around and came back. Toby was intent on finding a teddy bear, to the point that he wanted to make one. So he was looking around at discarded pieces of trash. I tried telling him that no matter how cute and creative you make it, most girls aren’t too fond of things that have been in a dumpster. We were in the process of coming back while looking around for something to make teddy bears out of, when , in one of the alleyways, there was these two other blonde fellows walking. And we ended up talking with them for awhile. One was also from Australia, the other from Ireland. And they kept rambling on about this backpacker’s paradise in Portugal, where the women are easy and everything is dead cheap. Toby and I had a hard time ending the conversation to let them know that we had 3 girls waiting on us for their water. Meanwhile, the Australian began to show Toby these pictures of these English girls back at this place in Portugal where they mud-wrestle. Until Toby, exclaimed to him that he really didn’t care. Well, we told them that we would see them the next day and we split. And by the time we got back to the spot where the girls were at, they were gone. Long gone. Not even their cardboard pallets were there. Toby throws down his water in frustration. And I just laugh. Knowing that the night had probably gotten too cold for them. And so what, we may have missed out on some cuddling but that was okay.

We went down the hill, half in search of the girls, half not really caring. We met this Spanish family, this one Spaniard named Albert who had been to America before gave me a free drink while I told Toby and him stories about the time that I decided to get a night shift job at Waffle House for a week or two. We split from him and managed to find a nice little courtyard where various people were sleeping. Toby fell right to sleep. He is one of those fortunate people that can turn it off at any moment. I just lay there. While the sky began to turn lighter shades of blue.

Eventually, I get bored and I begin to walk around, as the dawn arrived. When the morning is clearly present. I run into the 3 girls. And as I had guessed it, they had gotten too cold that night, and decided to find some more clubs to go dancing in. Well, on the Czech girl’s prompting, of course. So they had not been to sleep at all that night either. We bought are morning caffeine from a vendor and sat on the town square and waited for the Festivities to be kicked off and some Tomatoes to be thrown.

Getting Kicked Off A Train in Spain

2009-09-03T15:26:00.000-07:00

It all started innocent enough. I absolutely had no intentions of being a stowaway this time. Oh no, I looked upon those days of hapless train hopping, as a pastime of unmistakable immaturity. Yes, a sign of true juvenilia. That belonged to my youthful days….way back…in a spruce-like, bygone era…way back…in last November. While I was in Italy. It was so easy then. But now, I had grown up into respectful adulthood. Had hatched out of that spring egg of delinquency and tomfoolery , so no more dodging train conductors in order for a free ride on a locomotive.

I was in a rush, I was going to take the night train to Granada, where the famous Alhambra lies, polished like a dazzling gem in the south Spanish sun. As it was, the ticket booths at the train station in Valencia were all closed. And I was told by one of the workers to just get on the train, and purchase my ticket from the conductor. I consented towards the idea and went towards the train to board that great steel beast that was going to whisk me away to southern, Moorish Spain.

But as I boarded, a shadow of my old self flashed before me. Why, I could actually try to see how long I could go without paying. If I was extremely dexterous at it, I might get a free lift to Granada. If I didn’t succeed, all I had to do was just pay the conductor the amount. Seeing how I was told to pay this way to begin with.

It was to be an 8 hour long trip. So any success with this attempt would be quite the feat. I had to be like a cat. Ever watchful, ever present, and so very fast. My senses pricked up to their utmost ability to apprehend any type of encounter with a worker. I had one advantage. I looked the part of a normal back-packer from somewhere in northern Europe who probably would’ve paid. And pretending ignorance of any language they threw at me would be believable.

I headed for the sleeper cars to blend in with the congestion that had formed there because somehow the train company had booked too many passengers for the sleeper cars. (or maybe there were more scoundrels like me.) But I met a Canadian couple from Toronto, who were waiting for another sleeper car to come out. I was chatting a little bit with them. And when one of the conductors would approach, I’d sort of disappear.
A lot of the time, for the very beginning of the trip, while the train was just getting its engine warmed up, I hid in water closets. In Italy, if you hid in one without shutting the lock sign, it gave no indication that anyone was in there. Therefore hiding in one, without locking the door made the conductors think that well, obviously, no one was hiding in there. Reverse psychology, so to speak. In Spain, as I learned, they little regarded this nuance, and just opened the door. At one point, I was just standing there, looking at myself in the mirror, when the lead conductor opened the door, saw that someone was in there, and then shut it back. I thought that I was safe, that I had passed the first examination. That the game was in my favor. Brian Harrison =1. Train Conductor =0.
Usually the train conductor goes through the train from the beginning and punches everyone tickets. If you slip past this inspection time, then the odds are definitely in your favor. This is where I believed myself to be.

I continued to rummage about the train, I hid my bag on a luggage rack. Met 2 other stowaways, who were playing the same game I was. And explored the train almost from top to bottom. And as the time commenced, and the train dashed off into the inky blackness of this Spanish night, I counted myself as victorious. And wound up in the “seats only” section of the train, (where I was going to buy a ticket for from the first place.) I ended up in the door section talking to the 2 other stowaways who seemed to be rather certain that the chief inspection time had passed and it was okay to relax. They both were Italians, from Rome. And they both couldn’t speak hardly any Spanish (which is funny to me seeing how close their language is to Spanish) and they knew a little English. We conversed with each other in broken Italian, English, and Spanish. Somehow we could understand each other to some degree. We were talking about all sorts of things. They offered me a beer. And we were quite relaxed and at ease, when the lead conductor pops out of no where. He was this middle-aged man, who had this bristly moustache, for bristly moustaches seem to be all the rage for train conductors around the world. And he immediately started talking to the Italian gents. He knew from the get go that these Italians had not paid. They had some sort of ticket that they had purchased in Italy. But for some strange reason it was not valid in Spain. The conversation mostly took place in bad English, for neither could speak the others language. So it was apparent to me that no consolation was to be found and the train conductor was pretty firm in his deliberation to throw them off the train. Seeing all this before my eyes, I really wondered if he included me with them. And that maybe, I could just play it off as though, I was just in the entry way stretching my legs, peering out the window, out at the opaque darkness. Maybe he would pass over me.
But this didn’t occur. This particular train conductor was incredibly sharp and from his very brief glimpse of me half an hour before, in the water closet, when he opened the door on me, he knew that I was a non-paying passenger. So he definitely included me in his speech about getting thrown off the train. He was not mad. He seemed to thrive in the amusement of us being ousted off his vehicle. It was though, he knew the game all the while, was undisputed master at it, and was merely gloating at his vanquished opponents. He would say things like, “You guys will be sleeping…peering, looking up at the stars. It shall be a fabulous night for you guys freezing in the desert air looking up at the moon and stars.” And then he would laugh to himself. Even in the midst of this situation, I couldn’t help but like the guy. I tried to pay the fee then. But he would have none of it. He said that I had had my chance and that I was to be off the train at the next stop.

The next stop was this place called “Almansa”. A little town about an hour or so outside of Valencia. The door opened and the three of us with our luggage were very ceremoniously shown the door. And as the train sat there, for it seemed a long time, all the conductors came to the doorway and peered out at us, while a multitude of the passengers flocked to the windows and the doorways, to gawk at the spectacle. Meanwhile, the lead conductor with his bristly mustaches proceeded to crack jokes about the ordeal, saying things like “I hope you like your stay at this great touristy city of Almansa. People flock from all the world to come to the place where you are spending the night.” I even chimed in, and asked if they had post cards of Almansa at the train station. The Italians were getting a big kick out of everything, talking incessantly in Italian at the train conductor. Until the train door shut, the train started its engine again, and it was whisked off away into the darkness of this strange night.

Then we were left to ourselves. We walked to the deserted train station of this tiny town and asked the awake security patrolman, what time does the next train come by going to Granada. He said the next night at this time. In fact, that was the last train for the night. So, any train coming or going wouldn’t be until the sun was up the next day. So the idea was then hatched, to go hitch-hiking. But the impossibility of this was beyond belief. Because, we were 3 guys and in the middle of the night. What moron would pick us up? But one of the Italians, wanted to try it seeing how there was nothing else to do.

So we found this little roundabout where 2 roads intersected, and began to put our thumbs out anytime any midnight rambling vehicle approached. And of course, with no big surprise to myself the car would just pass right on by. The two Italians were an interesting lot. I only caught one of their names. The lighter skinned one with the long hair was named Stefano. He was a pianist back home in Rome. He would play occasionally for low-scale performances and would play the keys for classic rock covers, but mostly he was a piano tutor. His friend, was clean-shaven, darker, and with an ear ring, and what seemed to me shifty, envious eyes was a student studying geology. Though, he didn’t strike me as the scientist type. He seemed to be more domineering than Stefano and to make most of the decisions. Stefano sort of fit the bill for the musician type, laid back for the most part, and the two of them would argue like Italians always do with arms flailing every which way until it seemed that the student of geology had won. And of course, I was out of the entire argument, my Italian, barely able to ascertain what they were even talking about.

The morale of the situation was not low. Yes, we had just been kicked off a train and stranded in a little Spanish town until the next day, but I looked on it all, as a sort of adventure I was enjoying, though me losing this one train ride to Granada, meant that I would not be going to Granada at all, and that I would have visited Spain twice without seeing the Alhambra. But oh well, I’ve got to save something for old age. Yes, I had to get back to Barcelona to catch my flight out of here again.
My two newly found amicis were not worried about time at all. And they seemed to have a substitute for any feelings of loss that they may have encountered through the series of misfortunes. They had brought with them enough beer and booze to last them through the night, which they aptly insisted that I take some. I only had another of their beers. Meanwhile they drank on. As you can see, spirits were actually soaring considering the circumstance.

But this formed a huge problem. For the roundabout that we seemed to have somewhat encamped ourselves around, was right under some apartments. It wouldn’t have been a problem had it just been me. I mean eventually, I got so exhausted that I leaned back and was on the verge of sleeping rather peacefully. But these two Italians, decided that beer was not enough and they began to mix Pepsi with Rum. Both of which they brought with them for this sole purpose. And as they were a bit extroverted with the beer when I first met them, they now began to go overboard. They grew louder and louder. But not so much in their frolicsome air of playfulness as before, but they began to grow angry with one another. One of them threw a pepsi bottle cap at me while I lay there about to fall asleep. Then, a huge argument took place. They were yelling and carrying on, getting in each other’s face. The dominant one kept throwing his face into the other’s, telling him to hit him if he wanted. Until the chance was not taken and this dominant, shifty eyed one reached back and slapped the pianist in the face. I guess to show him how it is done. This set off Stefano, and he began to yell, almost scream in the face of the other. While, the other who seemed to have more control squinted his envious eyes in contempt at the other. Their yelling at one another, I knew that the neighbors heard. I just sat there. Knowing that the result was not going to be good. I considered it unwise to step in the middle of a drunken fight. Let the two of them duke it out, if they must. When they come to their senses, they’ll realize how stupid the ordeal was. And I also knew that the police would probably show up pretty soon, but I didn’t really care. Because, I wasn’t drunk. And I thought that if worse came to worse, it would probably be easier and warmer to sleep in a jail cell for the night than here.

It wasn’t too long before their hollering and ranting did attract the flashing lights, and 4 vehicles surrounded us. And about 8 personnel, mostly male, with some females got out of their vehicles and strutted towards us commandingly. Some of these where in normal police uniforms, others seemed to be deck out in some type of military operative uniforms. The leader happened to be another middle-aged man with a bristly-moustache. (I don’t know what it is about these moustaches; it must be the power they exude.)
He meticulously slipped on his leather gloves and proceeded to look at our documents. Like the train conductor, this guy seemed to be rather relaxed about the whole deal. In fact, broken conversation between the Spanish police and the two Italians about Italian police ensued. Everyone seemed to be shooting bull back and forth. There was no solemnity. Only a casual warning. I remained quiet and very alert and sober. It wasn’t long before the Spanish police realized that the two Italians were completely hammered. They seemed to smirk at this. They only warned us to keep quiet. Told us to throw away our trash and that we should try sleeping not at this spot. The policemen in Spain, from my experience are the most amiable in the world. I’ve had two run-ins with them thus far, and they are the best to work with. (except for the obvious language barrier). If this took place here in the US, then my experience would expect, a whole lot of BS power-tripping. Cops in America, are really big on inducing fear into anyone. And had this been anywhere in Eastern Europe, we would’ve been paying rubles or zloty or what every source of money they required. Officers in Eastern Europe are all about the bribes and money they get from you.
But in Spain, only a pinch of a warning. And some jovial camaraderie to boot.
Wanting to pay these policemen respect, I compliantly fetched the beer cans. While the majority of the officers of Almansa got in their cars. But the two Italians like a bunch of drunken ignoramuses hugged each other and began yelling again. I think they were making up with one another. The police approached them again, warning them to be quiet. I could see that no good was going to come about hanging around with these morons. So I immediately stole away up the hill, to get away from their loud stupidity. I found a nice little park and there tried to crash on a park bench. I do not know what happened to my compadres. Sometime in the early morning, I heard them talking loudly approaching. But they passed right by this ideal park and walked on up the hill to goodness knows where. I resisted any urge to call out to them, seeing how I just wanted to spend the rest of the night in peace and to myself. The next morning I caught a train back to Valencia.

How Not To Get In A Fight in Ireland

2009-08-05T22:29:00.000-07:00

High time for an Irish story. Of at least one good anecdote from that lush isle.
Perchance it was that we were strolling through the streets of Sligo. We, as in Caleb McKinney and I. Katie had stayed in the hostel reading.
I, getting a good whiff of the town previously entreated Caleb to join me, "This town's truly Irish, I tell you. No catering to tourists. Real Irishmen being really Irish." I'd like to think that I said those words. If I didn't speak them, I truly felt them and communicated the thought to Caleb effectively. So went a-sauntering into the wet streets ( Irish streets are always wet) of Sligo. Previously we had been in Dublin, then the Galway for an arts festival, in between these times we stayed out in the middle of nowhere in Western Ireland.

Sligo is in Western Ireland, its a city by Irish standards, though only a bustling town by American standards. It's mostly known for it being the place that the poet W.B. Yeats is from or at least they claim him. (People always claim poets after they're dead.) For me, Sligo was a refreshing look at an Irish town without them trying to sell you something. The people were just themselves. And we were among the few tourists around.

So Caleb and I go meandering down the slick streets of Sligo. And one thing should be said about Caleb. He had just purchased this hat in Galway, that in my fine opinion, did a nice job of complimenting him. I thought it befit him well. It was sort of like a dull-green fedora. Stylish and classy. The kind of hat you'd got to a horse race wearing, and bet a hundred just like that. As for myself, I was sporting this red sweatshirt. (a sweatshirt to keep warm because at no time, not even in the middle of July, is there ever a real summer in that flippin country.) This sweatshirt had a large bull on it and said, "Pamplona-Iruna, San Fermin." I had bought it in Spain a week before to commemorate my run with the bulls(And of course to show my feat off during the wintertime back in the states.)

Caleb had already been accosted in the street by this tipsy Irishman, who wanted to buy the hat right then and there on the spot. The clever Irishman went to the degree of debasing and avowing just how hideous the hat looked on Caleb. Resorting to giving his proper and unquestionable authority on the matter that, for one, Caleb's face just did not go with along with the hat. "Now, how much do you want for the hat?" he slurred on. But after he tried it on, not at all to Caleb's consent. We pretty much told him that while his advise was valuable in Ireland. It was mainly Katie's authority (Caleb's girlfriend) who was the true authority on such matters, and she had thought it looked good on Caleb. Enough said. We left him envious in the doorway of the pub. His last stab was to make the comment that Caleb's face was too American/Canadian for the Irish hat. The man went so far as to provoke squabbling between Caleb and I by saying that I had the more Irish face which I don't really agree with, not that Irish faces are ugly or anything.) and that the hat most necessarily befit me better. Well, his poisonous insurrections didn't work. I still thought that the hat looked dapper on Caleb. As for myself hats and long hair, I've never really seen their accompanying merits.

But this was not the first episode on account of his hat. For shortly after we were getting some euros out of an ATM machine on a bustling street. (Trust me you fly through euros in Ireland.) These two guys approached us. They bother were entirely sloshed. Young, about the same height and build. They could have been twins.
There was ridicule lined in their faces and they broke out in this derailing tirade about Caleb and his hat. One of them held ou his hand, offering a 2 euro coin to Caleb. All the while chiding in a sloppy brogue, that I could only understand maybe a 1/3rd of what he was saying. (Wha-a-a-a-t, is tha-a-t? Here, take this (untranslatable gibberish; Irish slang probably) in ye grimey (more indecipherable bantering) hands.

In most situations, especially in my travels in Eastern Europe, if anyone approaches you after you've been at an ATM machine, that are after what you just retrieved. It is best to avoid any contact. In Ireland, we didn't know what to make of this. Here these two drunk Irishmen were berating the both of us. One of them took Caleb's hat and placed it on his head. (As this seemed to reoccur over and over again with complete strangers I figured that it had some sort of magical charm to it.) These two guys were only hostile in an intoxicated playful way. After their spill of fun at Caleb, they turned upon me, and noticed my bright red sweatshirt with the large silhouette of a bull on it. "Whaaaat the bluddy is thaat?" That is awful. Ah, god-awful! That has to bee the ugliest shirt I've ever seen!" They stood there contemplating the magnificent awfulness of my sweatshirt.They got a real kick out of pointing at the balls of the bull on my shirt. And the drunken stupor was only increased by the astonishment on what to make of these two foreigners with their ugly, ugly sense of fashion. They couldn't gt their sentences out from the sheer ridicule of my red sweatshirt and Caleb's green hat. (I'm sure the pints of Guiness they had before contributed to that as well.)

Caleb and I really didn't know what to make of this fun-loving belittling. We just simply smiled. Laughing at how ridiculous they seemed in their drunken trance. But, we also, felt the aggression in their laughing slurs. Were they trying to start a fight with us? A sizing up naturally takes place. I was taller than both of them. Caleb was shorter than both, though probably stronger than both. We were both entirely sober. I think that we could take them on, if they tried anything. But they were Irish, those myths about the fighting Irish don't exist for no reason. Maybe they were fierce bare-knuckle boxers. They both kind of resembled the guys off of Boondock Saints. No, but I think I could quickly take care of one of them, if Caleb jumped on the other. Such thoughts swirl in the minds of guys. We hunched up. Bracing ourselves for the advent of what may break out to be a fight. One of them still had Caleb's hat on his head. And I thought for sure they were going to run off with it. I told Caleb under my breath for him to try to get his hat back while we were still talking with them.
But something altogether unforeseen occurred. They slipped from ridiculing us, to asking us to participate in a prank of theirs. Back several store fronts down, was a pub with people outside of it, they wanted to seperate from us and in a few minutes, they wanted us to walk up to this pub and in the midst of this group of guys, these two guys would act as though they hadn't talked to us, and ask us what are names were and where we were from. They gave us the answers to say beforehand. My name was to be Brian (befitting) Moore. And Caleb was to be Padraig McCoin(pronounced "Parg") and we both were with Nissan-Cooley Motors.
The whole joke was the fact that this group of men out in front of the pub was having some sort of business party. The company being Nissan-Cooley Motors, and that Padraig McCoin was sitting right there, who was one of the employees. Brian Moore was off somewhere, but still a well-known employee.

Beforehand, Caleb and I rehearsed our lines until we got the accent just right. Into a rolling Irish lilt. As we walked towards the pub, I thought, "So now we are going to tick off the real Brian Moore and Padraig McCoin and get into a bar brawl." We approached the pub and everything ran its course. The people who got the biggest kick out of it were the two guys who initiated it. They laughed and laughed and laughed. They kept asking over and over again and we would blurt out our scripts in the accent. I felt like a parrot. But all these hoops we jumped through were not without pay, for the two guys were quick to invite us into the pub and buy us a round of drinks. We had Guiness. And then the other employees of Nissan-Cooley Motors came up to us, talking with us and laughing about everything. This Padraig was a clown as well. He placed Caleb's hat on his head saying that the hat belonged to Padriag McCoin. We had just found ourselves some friends. We sat outside talking with them all. They even bought us another round of Guiness. I was talking to probably the most sober of this men, about traveling in America, when a fight broke out. It was between the real Padraig and another hot-headed company member. The other guy got pretty upset with Padraig's clowning and jumped on him. Knocking his Guiness out of his head with a shatter. He didn't take this type of mirthful ridiculing very well. We took this as a cue to go back to the hostel, seeing how the company was disbursing for some other joint and the fun-loving atmosphere had ended. The hot-headed man strut off for another pub. And the boss, who broke up the debacle, got really heated at this young guy who attacked Padraig (Padraig,who was just having fun.) The last thing I remember was the boss, now he sorely cross, marching to the other pub to confront this aggressive employee of his. I don't know if this included him being fired, or him just getting his Guiness knocked out of his hand. Caleb and I left. Caleb with his green hat and I in my red sweat-shirt.

The moral of the story. How not to get in a fight in Ireland? Easy, just play along with their ridicule. As soon as they see you take their belittlement in jest, they turn around and buy you drinks.

A Vagabonding Night in Spain

2009-07-29T08:11:00.000-07:00

My First Story. Going back to When I First arrived in Pamplona.

The packed bus roared into Pamplona. And immediately getting off, I went to look for a place to stay for the night. Not a hostel or a hotel or pension, but a place where I could lay down and stretch out unbothered by petty criminals and too much noise.

This idea came to me while in Barcelona, paying nearly 35 dollars a night for an oven that overlooked the streets near the Las Ramblas where nothing pipes down til 5 in the morning, if ever. Believe me, I would have gone the economical route and gotten a cheaper one, but all beds were too hard to find. I had to accept the 25 euro price, that being not much more pricier than a shared room. I found my room without air-conditioning and without silence, and therefore found myself without sufficient sleep. I decided right then and there, I am sleeping in the streets.

I caught a rare bus to Pamplona a few days before the world reknowned Festival of San Fermin. Things seemed to be already awashed in festive spirits. I had little prominition of how that Spanish town was to erupt once the first festival day arrived.

I walked out of the bus station met by cool air. We were higher in the mountains and more north, so I observed how those kettle hot days in Barcelona were over for now. And to my delight, I looked over and saw this immense, old ancient fortress. Like a sort of park dug downwards into the ground offering many lush patches of green grass to beckon my sleep-craving body and lull myself to some soft trance of fairy-tale slumber and sylvan dream.

Practically, I thought to lock my bag in the bus terminal for a hefty price, so that I wouldn't have to worry about pickpockets going through my belongings while I dreamed away. I kept a small amount of cash in one of my pockets. I had no pillow nor sleeping bag, just a long sleeve shirt and a pair of shorts on. I only thought to lay and stretch myself out to fall right away into slumbers. I went bounding into this fortress area looking for such a convenient place. I found countless places of solitude, laying on the grass, hidden in the shadows of the ancient past. But I underestimated the mountain climate. Now, I was just a pinch or two too chilly. As the night deepened so did the temperature. I was not freezing, just mildly uncomfortable. It vexed me that I did not bring my sleeping bag from out of the bus station. I spent alot of time, trying to find a place away from the wind. Laying here, laying there. Sometimes the grass wasn't right, sometimes, I found what looked to be the habitation of a homeless person and didn't want to risk being woke up by his hand in my pocket.

After awhile, I went back to my first original spot. And lay down and closed my eyes, and maybe would've drifted off into enviable rest when I got this sense of someone nearby. I opened my eyes and saw this African lurking a few yards from me. It was obvious he was watching me and trying to be quiet. I immediately, jumped up, "What do you want?" I impatiently whipped out in a strong, steely voice. Very softly he mumbled something out in Spanish about there was no danger from him. "Be at peace". I could tell he was worried about someone hearing me. And then he sauntered off. Well, I knew that I couldn't sleep there. He would come back and probably try stealing something off of me, if he found me asleep. So, I decided to leave the park and try my luck in the churchyard.

There was this large, modernistic cathedral not far from this fortress. It looked like some sort of church designed in Soviet Russia. Nevertheless, it had an open courtyard off to the side, and from what I could tell this wasn't a cemetery, although this would be the usual place to put a cemetery. Not a tombstone nor headstone, besides I was too tired to worry about that. So I found me a spot next to a hedge and again closed my eyes and was about to make the sweet leap into slumber, when again my eyes shot open due to some sense of something approaching. This time, I saw two Spanish guys. They were young and dressed in normal clothes and they were approaching me. I jumped up again, and they were immediately trying to talk to me all in Spanish. All that I could ascertain was that they didn't want to startle me and they wanted me to come closer to them. Well, I didn't want to waste any time here. All evidence pointed to the fact that they wanted to mug me. So in the middle of their speech, I took off, dashing out of the courtyard and then leaping down the cathedral steps, vaulting over full flights in one bound. I took off like a rocket down the streets. They yelling after me. This was why I didn't want to have a backpack or sleeping bag with me. So that I could do this. One of the guys was after me. But I thought surely once I got into the streets where people were still about, he would stop following me. But this didn't deter him. I ran up the street. I saw people walking down. And thought that he wouldn't mug me where tons of people where at. So I stopped to catch my breath, he eventually caught up and began to grab me. He first tried talking to me. While twisting my arm. And then he grabbed my hair, when I was breaking free from that. I was still catching my breath. And that moment dawned on me, when I had to decide to either talk my way out of this one, or fight. The temptation was there, but luckily I didn't act on it. But meanwhile, people where passing by and I was just amazed that he was so persistant. I began to say to the people that walked right beside us, "Where is the police." But they didn't understand. His friend was coming up behind. Then they both, when they heard I was talking about the police, told me that they were police. I scoffed at this. "Where are your badges", I signalled with me hands. One of them flipped up a wallet and I saw what looked like a plastic little medallion. Something from a cracker-jack box, the other showed me some sort of card, that looked like a student ID. I tried reading it, but he wouldn't let me. Then they both began to escort me towards the church again. And I thought for sure they were going to mug me there. But as they walked, one on either side of me, they began to ask me silly questions for criminals, and they asked me for my passport. (Perhaps it is only policemen that can ask you a stringful of ridiculous questions; they and customs agents.) I told them that it was locked with my bag in the holding section of the bus station. With these question, I began to think that they may possibly be real policemen. We passed right by the church to my relief. And they were taking me to the police station. They were policemen. Undercover cops. And they were wanting to know why on earth would I run from police officers. They probably told me they were officers when I first saw them, but due to language barriers and my initial reaction, I never really heard that.

We got to the police station and they took me to their captain. Nobody spoke English. And I didn't speak much Spanish (Dang my laziness in college.) But somehow I managed to explain to them that I thought they were thugs and that I didn't want to get mugged. That I had my passport along with any other form of ID in the bus station, and I couldn't retrieve them til the morning. Other cops joined in on the spectacle. We were all in the captains office. They told me that sleeping on church property was illegal. I told them that all I wanted was some sleep where I wouldn't be bothered. The captain jokingly offered one of his jail cells. I almost took it. One of the undercover guys says that it is Pamplona around festival time and that I shouldn't sleep but go downtown and party. They let me go and I began to walk downtown. It must've been about 3. I found a group of Spaniards in a bar, they ended up buying me drinks and we were all dancing. I went to sleep the next day tucked away in the bus station where I sleep peacebly for 6 hours.

Fortunately, I did have one contact however. A woman who goes to my church back in the states told me that her brother lives in Pamplona. His name is Hal Ward and he is a missionary there. I met up with he and his family and they allowed me to stay at their church office. Even gave me a key. I was very lucky. The rest of my time at Pamplona, I always had a place to crash.

My Long Awaited Anecdote of my 2nd Run of the Bulls

2009-07-20T10:38:00.000-07:00

It appears that I have been whirling about Europe, unable to sit down and unwilling to pay a ludicrous amount to pay for internet in order to detail the very stories that I am experiencing. But now, a change has occurred. I am back in the states. So I will do what I can in regards for unleashing some traveller's tales for you. These are a large portion of what has passed since I embarked to Spain back on July 1st.
And now for the much anticipation account of my 2nd Running of the Bulls.

My 2nd Run was to me, every bit as fun, if not more so, than my first run. I can't really tell why. But again, the run started off early. And as jacked up as my sleep schedule was, I decided to go to sleep the night before at 7 and got up at 2:30 in the morning right when the party in Pamplona seems to be just warming up. This 2nd run I intended on running close to the arena. That way, the bulls may have slowed down a bit, it being the end of their run, and I might catch a better glimpse of them. I was standing around this end part, when I saw this tall Aryan fellow standing alone. Perhaps, I felt a little kinship with him. Because for some reason all that seemed to be getting ready for this run were the Spanish. We began to chat. He was from Germany. And it was his first run. He then introduced me to some of his friends. One guy from the states and another from Canada. All were going at it for the first time. I felt like a veteran. Though, I had little advice. I think when you see someone uninjured doing the run a second time, it kind of reassures you that injuries are really not that common. (In proportion to how many people run it, that is.) We were busy making mental notes. You know, -where to go, when to run, which fence to drop behind, and so forth. When our strategies were all interrupted by the police. They looked like riot police. They all descended upon the crowd and started moving us further up towards one of the most dangerous spots of the run. -The Estafeta. Then these other police men arrive with festive red berets and what looked to be the words, "Floral Policia" on the back of their uniforms. For awhile, I thought that this was what was called the "Flower Police." You never know with these festive days with what festive reinforcement is needed.

We ended up getting kicked out of the run. Yes, and the regular police and the flower police wouldn't explain why they were doing so. So for a second we all thought that our run was not to be. But we thought to run down towards the beginning of the run and see if we could slip in down there. This was back where I ran my first run. So down through the back alleys we ran. Passing by partygoers who were still going strong at 7:30 in the morning. We came to the city hall and slipped underneath the fences and crammed ourselves into the throng of the other Americans and Australians. Blocking off the last section of the run was their way of crowd control to keep the path from being too blocked from people when the bulls were unleashed. 5 minutes until the gate would open, They allowed people to pass up ahead and try to get further up the street. So we took off jogging and walking to make it to the section at the end. I made it. And had maybe one minute or two til the rocket was to go off. That same cottonmouth feeling. That same sort of restless anxiety.

Then BAM! The rocket goes off, and that same panic seems to fill the crowd. I wasn't content with my position. I wanted to get up further so that I would have a little more to run. Some people started to whiz by me as I started to scoot up. Then the bulls began to advance. You could feel that they weren't that far. But at this place, it was impossible to really see the bulls like before. You just caught the sense of dread and mayhem as some people shot past and others remained craning their necks to see. Then, the absolute intensity of dread breaks out, and you know that they are not far behind. I turned around and began running. There was these fences, and in this particular spot, this fence sort of jutted out. It was a slight turn just before the arena. A cop, I couldn't remember if he was part of the flower police or not, was sitting ontop of the fencepost. Pointing down, hinting at me to jump under the fence. I think from his position he could see the bulls and they were almost here. But I wanted to get around this slight curve and immediately after I made it past him, I dove through the fence, headfirst. Falling on the crowd. I propped myself on one arm lying there, and turned around, maybe 2 or 3 seconds pass and the bulls with their heavy hooves striking the crowd pass by. Sitting there, I stuck my head out of the bottom section of the fence and was about to jump through when I remembered that at this point the bulls can seperate and that there could be a straggler. I push my head back from the opening, when this 2nd wave of bulls comes. All of them that pass are on my side of the road. There was this one that was skimming the fence. Just this wooden beam seperate us. Had I not jumped through the fence, and stayed on that side standing like I did the first time, I would have been drilled. The bulls passed and then people began to swarm after the bulls. I wanted to, but couldn't because I didn't want to then get my head knocked off by people, crawling back through the fence. So I looked for an opening and got through. And up and ran for the arena which I wasn't far from. It was near this spot the very next day when I had already left Pamplona, that a man was killed. For some reason the bull got isolated and when a bull gets isolated from the rest of the herd, that's when they are dangerous. I was in Madrid by then, but all the TVs in all the cafes in the early morning air were showing the run. It was brutal.

Here is a recording of the 2nd run. There is no way possible to see me, though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TnsU_kMNCc&feature=PlayList&p=AB973EE2FE0F7416&index=2

As stated before, after the bulls enter the arena. Everyone else enters also. Then they bring out the smaller, yet still violent cows with the corked horns. These run about charging everyone and smacking into them if you happen to be in its path. One of these cows, was blatantly ballistic, running every which way knocking people every which way as well. The cow even turned to the stands and began knocking people who were perched up on the outer wall. I think there was one girl that got her pants tore off her. I just remember her legs in the air and her pants around her ankles as she fell back into the crowd away from the cow. Most everyone that gets hit is not seriously injured. Maybe a scratch there or a bruise here. A few bloody-noses but these are people that try to gang up on the bull and wrestle it down. Which the local Pamplonians hate. They throw things at the crowd when this happens. This last run of mine, there was a fight in the arena between a local and possibly someone from Central America. I think the Central American tried grabbing the animal and forcing it down. This infuriates the Pamplonians and even some of the locals in the ring will smack you on the head with a newspaper very hard, when you try this. I think that's how the fight erupted. The fight almost broke out into brawl. I thought that they should just let them fight, but yet send out one of the cows while they battled and that would, surely, break them up.
This 2nd run, I actually managed to touch the horn of one of these cows. Not intentionally, I was standing there, learning that you don't have to run from the cow. Only make a few hasty side steps, when it started to veer in your direction. Well, the cow came rushing straight towards me, and I barely got out of the way. Instinctively, I grabbed its horn and pushed his head away from me while I side stepped. The cow went in the direction of the tug and never made contact with me. Here is footage of the arena. It's alot of fun. I was in there somewhere, though, I haven't been able to see myself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4stXvhF16AQ&NR=1

The Run

2009-07-15T07:13:00.000-07:00

San Fermin kicked off and it had been up until that point like a gathering and a sizzling of little bubbles until the pop off the cork of a champagne bottle. People by the thousands assembled all wearing their whites and their red sashes around their waists along with their red handkerchiefs about their necks. I slipped into this festival wear as well.

Sangria with Coke was thrown about the crowds often converting th general white festival uniform into slaphappy pinks and purples. Everything seemed to have exploded, and the result was the biggest party that I've ever seen.

All day and night long the party was constant and never ending. The streets late through til morning were packed with the Spanish youth. Many of these drunk, many dancing, many bouncing from bar to bar not collecting dust in one corner of this old Spanish city. The music and the tipsy clamor constantly crashing in the air. Whole procession bands and sometimes the most incredible drum lines banging and clanging through the streets packed people dancing like they were dancing the Tarantella. Bitten by some poisonous spider that made people hop and prance madly through the streets long ago during the Middle Ages. Bottles, cups, trash, and an occasional party-goer strewn haphazardly about the alleyways. It was wild. And put any frat boy attempt to shame.

This was the first night of San Fermin; there was to be 6 others. The Running of the Bulls takes place so early that instead of going to bed, I reckon I'd stay out all night. That way by 5, i could start to claim my position. I also had to study the famous route of the bulls to know which way to go. Sometime after 4 in the morning, while the first night of partying was still going strong, I began to survey the possible positions. I even made it to the corral and took a look at the huge bulls that were to be the stars of the morning.

Near the start of the route, I came to a large group of Americans. All young men in their early twenties. And all from New York City. None of these guys had run before. They were a little nervous. So I started to speak to them. And because I had done some research, they began to bombard me with questions as though I really knew anything about what we were about to do.

The area where we were at, was called the Ayunomiento, or the City Hall. It was regarded as one of the best places for beginners. Because there is this steep hill from where the bulls are coming from. The advantage is that you can actually see the bulls coming. That, and running up the hill the bulls are a little slower than usual. The area also has lots of places to exit. So for the next two hours, we stand in this area waiting, while more and more runners assembled.

The sun finally rises and shines, bringing a pinch of commonsense to what I was attempting. One New Yorker kept wrestling with the idea of getting out of the run. That he didn't want to die and so forth. But everyone encouraged him and told him that he'd only regret missing this opportunity seeing how he was leaving Pamplona the next day.

Closer and closer, the time got. 30 minutes turned into 15 minutes. 15 minutes into 10 min. And then 5 min. And all the while I'd been standing for so long, and had been dancing with Spanish girls the whole night through. I begin to wonder if my feet would hold out; they were so tired. And then that one golden minute arrives, and everything hangs as though the universe stops expanding during that one minute. The streets are packed with white-dressed runners. Many worried looks and anxious glances at watches. And a brave tightening of the red sash. And the "BLAM!" the first rocket shoots off. People begin to cheer. That's when the corral doors open. There is a certain strange anticipation not just perceived within myself, but within the entire crowd. Then the 2nd rocket goes off, which signifies that all the bulls are out of the corral and into the streets, running my way. All eyes are strained towards the road. Some people begin to run early before a bull is even seen. But then, up and around the slight turn advances these huge white creatures. Maybe it was my imagination, but what seemed to be even a cloud of dust behind them. And in that glance I saw where people used to be, vast spaces. Everyone in front of the bulls was scurrying. I didn't waste my time either. The bulls would be here in no time. I began sprinting up the hill, people rushing every which way. When running its hard to tell how close they were behind me. It didn't take me too long to get to the large space in front of the City Hall Building and cut a sharp left next to the fences. Though swarms of other people were doing the same thing. I ended up getting packed next to the fence by other people. One person jumbled up onto the sides, as soon as everyone had packed themselves up against the fence, said, "Ok. Now everyone keep still." Just then, these massive white blurs whizzed past. Totally oblivious to all the people bunched up to either side of them, with nothing to separate us from them.
The first group had rushed by, and I had just craned my neck around, and almost decided to chase after the bulls, when 1 or 2 other bulls passed by. As soon as these passed, I rushed out from the wall of people and began to chase after the bulls at full throttle. I didn't know I had it in my poor, poor feet to run that fast that far. Of course, the bulls had already long gone left my sight of vision. But if I kept on running I just may be able to make it into the arena. I knew there was a slight chance in that.

While running, I do recall full vaulting over someone in the middle of the street. Further down on the other side a worker was trying to hold off the crowds from running, due to keeping someone who fell from getting trampled on. By the time, I got near the arena, the crowds were thick. And it looked like I was going to make it. I picked up speed and made it into the tunnel which led into the arena. When, I got this sense of panic from people behind me. I heard people begin to yell and scream in fright. And then I realized what it was, it was the steers that follow up the run. I heard their large bells clanging. And I also knew that being in the tunnel was the worst possible place to be with a herd of enormous bovines plowing through. Though, they were not as wild and ferocious as the bulls, all it takes is to get knocked down and trampled on by these "tamed" animals to complete a visit to a hospital. The end of the tunnel was near, and from what I could sense the steers were right behind me. There was this random girl to my right, who began to yell, and as we finally exited the tunnel into the arena, I cut an immediate left and grabbed the girl by the shoulder and pulled her with me. Fortunately doing so, for immediately behind us were the steers, which charged straight out of the tunnel, just barely missing us who cut over out of the way just in time.

Then the feeling of elation arrives. I found myself in the middle of an arena with thousands of people watching and cheering with all the runners that made it into the arena. It isn't too long before, the cows are unleashed into the arena which means all types of more fun and more mishaps. But I will share more about this later. Thus, this concludes my first running of the bulls. I was going to detail my 2nd run here also. But seeing how I am in an internet cafe in Ireland and its really expensive. I will hold off on my 2nd run, which I think I rank it above my 1st run. Until then,

Running of the Bulls; the Process

2009-07-10T13:10:00.000-07:00

50 years ago Ernest Hemingway had last run with the bulls of Pamplona. He was of old age. I didn´t know this until getting to Pamplona. The city was celebrating this fact along with the usual absolute insanity of San Fermin.

The process of the running of the bulls goes like this. At 8 in the morning a rocket is shot off, the corral door is lifted, and 6 monster bulls emerge along with 6 smaller black bulls and they begin to run into the ancient streets of Pamplona, Spain. It´s a run of less than a mile. In between are little sections where the runners assemble. Some of these areas are more dangerous than others. This is due to the presence, or lack thereof, of possible exits; how narrow the street is at that particular section, and the presence of any curves or turns; or in one case a huge turn, which they term the Dead Man´s Corner where the bulls many times go slamming into the wall not anticipating a sharp turn to the right. If any person takes this corner on the left then he nearly risks a good crushing from a bunch of massive tonned bulls. The running of the bulls is actually the transporting of bulls from their corrals to the Plaza del Toros, a big arena where later that day all of them are to meet their death at the graceful hand of a matador, in the day´s bullfight.

How such a process has turned into a huge risk-indulging, machismo-showing for people who like a good thrill, I cannot say. But this custom of running of the bulls has been going on for 5 centuries now, and it is entirely tied to San Fermin, a very early Christian in Spain who was matyred by the Romans, some say by being dragged through the streets by bulls, others say his teacher and mentor was dragged through the streets this way. Either way, the entire world knows of this custom and may willingly participate.

These runnings happen every year between July 7th and July 14th. So that´s 7 mornings a year in Pamplona that a person can have this experience. (And actually smaller festivals throughout other towns in Spain, France, and Mexico.) Each day it seems that thousands participate. Alot of them are locals. Though it seems that a majority of the Pamplonians that I met have not run, and some of the local girls are happy to express their thoughts that the whole thing shebang ¨loco¨.
For the most part the participants are alot of Spanish, alot of Australians, and quite a number of Americans, with here and there a German, or a Frenchman, a Kiwi, or a Canadian or a Brit in there. And surprisingly enough, both times that I ran, there were a few women that ran.

I was told that there are 3 rules and one golden rule to remember when running.
Rule 1) Don´t run drunk. It´s surprising how likely this can actually be during the Festival of San Fermin. Though the police look out for any drunks and kick them out. Not only is it a danger to oneself, but to a whole slew of people that may trip because you trip, and get trampled because you tripped.

Rule 2)Make sure your shoelaces are tied. That´s pretty given.

Rule 3)Make sure you count the bulls as they pass you before you chase after them. If you miscounted you could run smack out in the middle of the streets with a unforeseen bovine charging straight at you.

And the one golden rule to remember. If you fall down either by tripping or even getting knocked down by a bull. Stay down. Back in 1995, an American got killed because after he was knocked down, he got up to be in the path of a bull who lowered his horns and killed the poor boy right on the spot. Also, the bulls try not to step on you because doing so can hurt them.

When I first desired to run with the bulls, I thought that it was possible to run in front of them the entire time. I was grossly mistaken. The bulls are so fast that only a few seconds before you start running have they passed you. It is possible to run directly in front of them, but this action is usually only done by those either very brave or very insane individuals who have probably run with the bulls enough times to know what they are doing. They run alongside the bulls swatting them with rolled up newspapers. Call me a weiner, but I contented myself with running a good many yards ahead of the bulls. (Not too far for it to be easy, though.) and then ducking out, very quickly, right when they were about to be on me. And after they had passed, then back out into the streets chasing after them. Usually a person must be satisfied with only a few yards devoted to their tails actually getting chased. The rest of the running is done with you chasing the bulls, (which you'll almost never catch). You chase them into the Plaza del Toros. The big arena where the bullfights transpire. Shortly thereafter this the steers are ushered in and then the gates are shut. It is in this arena, that alot of the runners make it before they shut the door with crowds watching. The bulls run to their corrals. The audience cheers, in the morning sun, and that fine thrill of adventurous accomplishment awaits you. They show replays on the big screen in the arena of the run, mostly of either people getting hitvery dramatically or having close calls while everyone oohs and aahs over the danger of that run. Every day, there may be on average about one or two persons hit but with minor injuries. This is out of the thousands of people that run per day. However, just the other day there was a death. A lone bull went crazy and gored some young man. It was the day after my last day. And almost near the same spot that I was at. These bulls can be very unpredictable at times. But for the most part, the running is not that dangerous if you use your head.

Once in the arena, you cannot put your guard down, for without warning they unleash the black cows that run with their horns corked. These cows, they let go in the arena one at a time. And they go about knocking people over, at first charging at full speed. All of us runners, inside are allowed to taunt the cow and when he comes at us, we dodge him. Some even try to wrestle him down. Though the local Pamplonians hate this and throw things at the aggressive perpetrator who tries to wrestle the cow. In some ways this spectacle is almost as thrilling and probably more entertaining to watch than the actual running of the bulls. A number of people get downed by these 5 or 6 bulls that they free one at a time. Some get knocked through the air. Probably suffering all types of bruises. Occassionally the cow is overpowered by a group of men, and an almost dogpile is commenced. But soon the cow is up again knocking people around like a bunch of bowling pins. Sometimes she comes out of no where, catching people unaware. The crowds loves this. And seems to always cheer for the cow. I ended up touching the horn of one of this cows one time, and fortunately dodged a good pommelling. When these cows get tired, a massive steer comes out that is pretty much harmless except for its sheer size. He walks towards the cow to lead the cow back to the corral. Many times, people are so enmeshed in the riot of the cow, that they are caught unawares by this huge steer that knocks them down from behind. This almost happened to me a time or two, but I learned to keep my ears tuned for a dull clanging bell, which the steer wore around his neck. That's about it. I think in my next installment, I'll tell of my individual experience of the running of the bulls. Of what happened and how it all went down.

The Running of the Bulls; An Invocation

2009-07-09T13:30:00.000-07:00

I had wanted to approach this age with all the zest, all the candor, all the panache, that a passionate, thriving soul possibly could.

As the age of 30 looms near it was time to celebrate what it means to enter into summer-ripe manhood and finally brush off what was meddling and trite.
I guess that upon the threshold of such a pivotal age, I should take up golfing, start investing in stocks, buy a big house, and worry about the economy crumbling in.

My rite of passage, I could start swaggering about the office cubicle, find myself a wife who paints her nails while watching ¨Desperate Housewives¨, and deem myself loyal to one sport´s teeam, whooping my ancient, primitive war cries into the mundanity of ESPN. But no, I chose instead to go running with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain on a bright summer´s morning, my red sash whipping through the wind.

More to Come....

The Thing About Arch Enemies and Good Friends

2009-06-08T00:13:00.001-07:00

Yes, everybody has had at least one during their lifetime. At least people with a certain style or verve to their personality. I’m truly sorry if you have never had the good fortune of having an arch enemy. They tend to teach us all kinds of things about ourselves. But for the most part, they teach us how to swagger with a certain panache, and they make one’s daily existence so much more exhilarating.

This is a story not about my own arch enemy. Mainly because to even mention him, I completely divert both our attentions to him. For by attempting to villify him, I would only make him a sort of murky hero. No, it is best when dealing with arch enemies to allow them to tell wild, incredible stories about you. And not vice versa. The stage of a tale is only big enough for one of you. And for my tale, I merely give the arch enemy the worst character, that of the silent, passing through, extra. I will only mention this about him. He is brilliant, smug, and pretentious. And I once nearly got in a fist fight with him at a costume party one night many Halloweens ago. That is all. Now i will make my archenemy leave the stage of my tale, and I will narrate our way onto other things.

There are a few criteria that applies to all arch enemies. It is merely someone that at the same time you cannot tolerate, but yet you respect. Yes, if you dig deep enough, and are able to face it, you find envy and, even, a deep admiration. What’s an arch enemy that you can’t respect? If the cards had fallen out different in your life, you could’ve well have been good friends. But they fell out wrongly and now it’s all an obdurate exchange of sneers and sour grimaces. In many cases, and paradoxically, the set of archenemies agree that the other is their arch enemy without officially communicating it to the other. Theirs is a war pact of scowls and squinty-eyed grudges.

Anyways, a few months ago. I had a similiar conversation with a good friend of mine. He brought the topic up, and I must say, he has further inspired me. Now this friend of mine has many good qualities. He is nice, adventurous, wise, and a good conversationalist. A leader and someone wanting to change the world for good. He has an all around good heart and capable brain. That, and he is one of the funniest people I know. But for all his good qualities, he happened to be rather begrudged towards this figure whom we will call, "Dave". Now, this Dave character, like my friend, is a capable church-planter and leader. But appears to be Soooo very successful at it all. Rumors abound, at how in Nashville where this Dave guy leads an ever increasing church that meets so trendily in a bar. And the people flock to him waiting for him to hand out bread and fishes. It being a bar, he rumors may be that he turns the water into wine, which attracts the crowds all the more. A certain authentic charisma charges the people assembled and he attracts followers, both young and old, male and blushing female, wealthy and (as every church planter is thankfully turning)..towards the poor. All this he does at the young age of 25 or 26. At least that's the way he's depicted. But here's the kicker, my friend met this Dave character and found him to be, so friendly and so nice, such an all around good guy, that my friend could not at all find any reason to hate him. Which of course, fueled an inner dislike of the guy all the more. It was from this interaction, that my friend dubbed him his arch enemy. Now, whether or not they will ever come to blows, or whatever Dave thinks of my friend, these are left up to speculation and a fanciful imagination.

But time progressed, and I left Orlando, and left the church-planters conference where my friend had invited me down. And eventually, I happened to make my way up to Nashville for my sister's graduation. Sunday evening, she proposed that me and a cousin of ours should visit this really neat church where they meet in a pub. We say, okay. And I, of course, knew where this was going to take me. Into the territories and strongholds of my friend's very own arch-nemesis. I was very excited about this.

Well, of course, the place was packed and everybody seemed to be in a state of extreme anticipation. We stood carousing in the back, when I look over at a counter and I see this little sheet of paper. And its where you can request a prayer or even ask for a call from anyone. For some reason or another I was in an extremely giddy, playful mood, so I reached over to the book and wrote that I would really like to know more about how this church started for I was wanting to plant the same type of church. And then I requested for Dave to speak with me, because I was particularly impressed with some of the ideas he has. Then, I did the most cruel thing. I signed my friends name and then got my cell phone out and looked up his number placing his number down. Yes, I know...dastardly...conniving...and so very shameful. But I couldn't help but think how funny it would be when my friend gets an actual call from his arch enemy on how to plant a church. I did this all, while Dave was actually speaking.

After the devotional, I went up to Dave shook his hand. And told him that I had heard about him down at this big church planter's conference in Orlando. He had heard of this conference but was flabbergasted. He was such a humble guy that he couldn't believe that someone had mentioned him and this church that he had helped plant. And I didn't dare tell him, that I mostly heard about him through his arch enemy.

Later that night, I made the bone-headed mistake of calling my friend and leaving a message about how I had shook his arch enemy's hand and found him to be an extraordinary person, a guy that I couldn't help but like. All this was in the spirit of good fun and rollicking camaraderie.

Well, the strange thing was, was that no call ever came back. Usually, I, at least expected him to leave a message back joking about this or that. But no call was ever returned. And if this particular friend of mine does not call to joke back, something must be the matter. And I began to suspect, that it could've been that very night that Dave had called my friend and something very, very embarrassing had taken place all due to my insolent practical joke. Weeks passed. And maybe even months. And for awhile there I thought that I had lost a good friend due to the subject of arch enemies. Who knows, maybe he had thought the extreme, and had placed me in the same camp as his nemesis. I was now his ex-friend, accomplice-to-his-arch enemy. A tarnished category in its own right. In fact, when I first began to write this piece, several weeks ago, I had not heard from him, and I thought that it would help things by writing about the humorous incident. But writer's block or procrastination had swapped me, so I never did finish.

And now recently, we are in correspondence once again. Things appear to be patched up. Though, neither have mentioned the incident til now. I hope he finds this funny.

The Night I ACCIDENTALLY Picked Up A Prostitute

2009-04-24T21:58:00.000-07:00

Rather than hit you with the surprise later on in my narrative, I decided to just mention the full implication of this experience in the title. Thereby inciting further interest. And greater perseverance with my somewhat lengthy anecdotes. But who isn't curious now?

I had journeyed down to Orlando, Florida. A friend from the beautiful state of Washington whom I haven't seen in years was attending this conference on church planting. He urged me to attend. I consented in the hope of avoiding the large ramification. i.e. paying the ridiculous conference fee of $275. And even bumming a few nights in a hotel. All of which I accomplished while spending time with this friend and going to a few lectures and classes here and there.

But my last night there. I left the guys in my hotel room to go grab a bite for supper. It was late. After 11 pm. I didn't tell the guys in my room, but I was in a sort of funk. A little down. I was tired of church talk. Tired of church things. Everyone around me seems to have grand plans and dreams for God. While, I eek my existence as a selfish bastard, completely oblivious to roping people in...as another replica of myself. I have no calling like these people do. For some strange reason I feel the spirit of God furthest from me in the presence of hyped up evangelistic people in mega churches. I can be so full of doubts in such situations. And when i had finished eating I pulled up to a gas station near the hotel. There was this woman standing in the parking lot with what seemed to be her thumb out. Begging for a ride. I told her that I didn't know just yet. That I had to think about it while I pumped gas. She was a white woman in her 40's. Maybe older. She might've been really pretty once, but this had all been smeared and ransacked into something fatigued and haggard. Her clothes were very plain. And her brown hair pulled back into a frizzy pony tail. She was a wreck of something wholly lost and pined for. The castaway refuse of those Magic Kingdom towers in a shattered Disney World dream. I began pumping gas, while she tried to convince me in what a dire situation she was in. No money. No car. Nothing, but the pleadings of a broken-down Cinderella.
I am no idiot. I knew the possibility of what she could be. But she needed a ride not far from the gas station and I am one that actually considers picking up hitchhikers. Especially when they are female, vulnerable, and liable to be picked up by complete monsters. So I tossed the options in my head. I also wondered if she wasn't a prostitute she could very well be a cop posing as a prostitute. Which could have me in some serious trouble. Only for helping another person out. But this I soon dismissed because I had seen a Cops episode where the undercover hooker could not prosecute the client until he consented to the business deal. This, of course, would not happen. But it could very well be that she was only a luckless woman that really, really needed a ride to her home.

So, I told her to hop in. And as she shut the door, this pervasive, rich perfume wafted the entire interior of my car which confirmed all my suspicions.
As she directed where I should go, she began talking about how hard life was for her. How she had just gotten a job and she named the place which I can't remember. And then added on,
"Oh, but I hope you don't judge me or anything. But I do what I can to get by."
I tried changing the subject, "Now, how far is this place that you want me to take you? You know I'm not too familiar with Orlando."

"Oh, don't worry, dear. I'll show you. It's not far. I really appreciate you driving me. Life is really so difficult right now. But I am willing to do anything to get by.
And then she finally threw the question at me.
"So I guess you wouldn't be interested in THAT, would you?

"Nope, you're right. Sorry, I'm not interested in that."

"Oh,..I hope you don't judge me."

"It's not you that I judge. It's the ones that are using you that I think should be judged. That's basically what it comes down to. You are being so used. Do you ever think that you could get back what you had lost?"

"Yes, if I ever had the chance to do it all over again...I'd do things different"

"But that lost sense of innocence..." I trailed off somehow not being able to form the words of what I wanted to say.

We sat in silence as the car whipped through the darkness on the outside. She was very, very tired. Her eyes were closing. I wonder how many nights she had been working without sleep.
"Are you going to be alright? You look exhausted. But you must wake up, for how am I to know the way with you asleep."
"Sorry, I am just so tired."
Her eyes closed again and she dawdling between the realm of wakefulness and her own dreams whatever they may be. I let her rest and continued to drive on the same highway.

When she glanced up she wanted to know our location. And noticing the light we were at, she gasped that she didn't know where we were. The strange idea that I was lost on the highways of Orlando with a tarnished lady of the red lights struck me. But then she said for us to go back the way we came. I thought just to keep her awake by conversation this time. And also I was very, very curious.
"So how did you get into this work?"
"I used to dance. And I would get money thrown at me back in those days. And it was fun and easy to make money. But all this led to other things. Back then, I never would have thought that I'd wind up where I am now."
Apparently, she had been married and was still technically. Only separated.
Our exit wasn't too far. And she started warning me about this side of town. It became obvious to me that I was not taking her home but dropping her off at another good location for her business.
"I've been working. Doing what I can to pay my rent. I owe $50-$60 for rent and I have nothing."
When she said this, I almost believe that it was a sales pitch to try me one last time to see if I'd be all at disposed to helping her for a little favor in return. But I dodged the proposition.
I knew that her life was pure misery. So what else could I say? I told her that I was not judging her and I'm trying to evangelize her, but I asked her if she ever tried prayer.
She said that she did sometimes, but she never really knew what to say.
I told her that what you say is not really that important. Prayer has to be often.
And then without, me prodding her, she blurts out, excitedly, that she wants to pray with me. So I say sure.
And I really can't recall my prayer. But it dealt with calling upon the light of the Spirit to be known right now in this moment to her. For His light to cast itself into all darkness and despair. To take Michelle, give her value, erase shame, allow the spirit of prayer to so lead her. To let her know that she is deeply valued by Him, and the Light to so immerse her life, that she is aware of this great Presence.
By Christ's name, Amen.
The prayer itself had moved me so I reached for my wallet and (this sounds better than it really is) I gave her all the money in it. Which was only $2.
She was no longer tired. Her eyes were wide open. There was this ecstatic joy found in her movements and expressions. As she got out of the car she kept thanking me and telling me to be careful.

As I left, I seriously wondered how much an effect one prayer can have. I was going to return to my churchy bubble, underneath it all, trying to keep from patting myself on my back due to my interaction, while meanwhile this lady struts her streets locked in a miserable life faced with all types of demons and oppressions. So if you are reading this and you feel at all convicted please shoot off a quick prayer on behalf of Michelle. If you don't believe in prayer, maybe just send a hopeful wish and that will suffice.

Oftentimes, while we plan and build the Kingdom of God, it moves and falls in the most unlikely places. Among the most unlikely people. And we can only be responsive to it when it comes. All further inquiries of what happened, of measuring the results are impossible. Someone once said that it is very much like the wind. And I believe that.

A Lenten Reflection on Looking Up at the Night Sky

2009-03-09T08:55:00.001-07:00

The Kingdom of God is like a glimmering full moon unsheathed and untarnished. Our souls, or my soul, is like the inky blanket of night. Dark, ominous, and immovable. But how the Kingdom of God shines even though it is only a small hole of light ripping through the broad fabric of Self giving amazing visibility and sublimity to all it pours over. And how vast the stretches of non-light these nighttime heavens and hells reveal. –This wide, wide sky is all of myself yet to be transformed. Some is darkness that is panting to be turned into light. Much is darkness that is hiding from the light. But yet this moon still encases all into an exuberant gleeful glow.

And perhaps we as humans all are dark nights. With here and there stars as little remnant specks of some distant dreams of divinity. How broken and scattered and incomplete is this light. And for the most part the sky hangs as a massive canvas of opaqueness. But how much difference does even a little bit of space that I give up for that silver-kissed moon make giving luster to a lusterless night?

A Fish Story

2009-02-23T11:10:00.000-08:00

Lately, parables have become the fashion, at least, in my circles. It must have been centuries since they passed out of fashion. There is something of a greater truth exhibited or perhaps a greater impression with the truth exhibited in them. No clear-cut information, no formula, no how-to book, only a simple story and something of a zing, or a breaking up of an idea to catch some glimpse of something beyond an idea. Christ used them, just as all rabbis used them. But the art goes wholly neglected in our day and age. Stories are merely kept around for their entertainment value. If anyone wants an instruction on how to live then we have merely step by step procedures and practical how-to volumes that line the book shelves, some of them bestsellers. Yet there is something altogether more challenging in a parable. For it is not so much nearly knowing and understanding, as it is discovering and transforming. We, today may match ancient humanity in our creativity with our diversions, we probably surpass them. But it seems that ancient humanity was far more creative in their inner values. With our inner values we are the most unimaginative people ever. We know so much, but we discover so little. The below is a parable I wrote for a meeting at a pub in downtown Birmingham. An author and theologian, Peter Rollins was present, who is all into these parables. Just talking to him you get about 3 good ones per conversation. To the point, however when one is talking about God, it is impossible to merely state the facts. Stories must be used. So with no further ado…

PARABLE

Captain Ahab and Jonah and a bunch of fishermen sat in a fishermen’s pub swapping “fish stories”. Captain Ahab was sure that he had the biggest fish story. So he proceeded with exciting expressions and flaying arm spans to talk proudly about what he called “the world’s greatest fish”. He told incredible stories, told how he had lost one of his legs, the very foundation of himself, to this great big white whale.
“But do ye think that slowed me down one bit?” he’d say, “No, I got a sturdy, wooden pegleg and now I stand firmer than ever, and chased that great beast around the world!” He then talked on and on about the many times he stabbed the gargantuan creature with his harpoon. And how with every stab, it made him more and more crazed with this one alone obsession of stabbing this behemoth of the deeps and he cared for little else but that one great final stab and then latching the whale to his boat. His voice grew louder and louder as he talked about his obsession. Until, by the end of his tirade he was balancing on top a chair with a pool stick in his hand thrusting it in the air, fomenting, “From the heart of hell I stab at thee!!” But everyone in the pub was quite used to it by now. This was usual; Captain Ahab and his theatrics.

But still it was quite a good story and there was considerably commotion around the pub about this great fish. No one could top it. But the spectacle was short-lived when someone uttered, “Jonah, didn’t you have a fish story? Didn’t this huge fish swallow you whole?”
At this the whole assembly of salty seamen gasped and looked in astonishment at the reserved Jonah. Captain Ahab, a bit perturbed after seeing that the shock effect he had over the crowd had so quickly waned and was replaced by another man’s fish story gruffed out, “Swallowed by a fish?! Why, this fish couldn’t possibly be bigger than my fish! Anyhow, I’ll wager on it. That my fish is bigger than your fish. For I alone know the dimensions, the measurements, and proportions of my fish. Folks, he’s a straight up terror to know and to look in the face as I have done. So tell me, Jonah, just how big was your fish?”
Jonah paused and the began searching for words that were not really surfacing, “ I really can’t say. It must’ve been big to some degree…I mean big enough, at least, to swallow me. But I really can’t say just how big. How scary it was. It was so dark. –So empty. Just this great void of darkness. I lay there without sight, without the ability to hardly move for several days. At times, my mind would wander and I would even begin to question if I was really in the belly of a whale. Maybe I was in some sort of coma-like dream, or maybe I was even lying blinded in my bed. But it was cold and it was wet. And on occasion, I could feel everything move all of a sudden, and this would awaken me, and I would think that maybe, just maybe the whole thing was real, that I was in the belly of a giant fish. But sorry, I really can’t tell you how big it was, if it really was a fish at that.”

With his calm, cool voice completing the story, everyone stared. Captain Ahab smiled a big smile knowing that he had the more provable and bigger fish story. But on the contrary, though they didn’t say anything, all the other fishermen in the pub knew down in their silent hearts that Jonah had the more convincing fish story. “His was probably a far bigger fish too” they all thought to themselves, as a profound silence fell about the pub.

SLIGHT INTERPRETATION
It is those on the inside that are the most clueless as to what is going on, while those on the outside are the experts. Many times, it is those in the darkness of doubt that are more embraced by God, than those surveying Him from afar. God from the surface is always explainable; God from the deeps is entirely unexplainable. Sometimes He’s so close, He seems absent. Mother Teresa’s doubt comes to mind here. This is the paragon and paradox of faith.
Captain Ahab is a representation of a very modernistic view of God. He’s obsession his stabbing the whale, that is staking Him down. He rides upon the surface with his pegleg which points to his insistence on foundation, on being able to stand on something. While Jonah lays hardly able to move in the belly of the fish. Captain Ahab is also much about theatrics, which may point to the emotional manipulation that is found in many churches of today. Jonah on the other hand seems uninterested in the competition. His speech shows uncertainty and humility. There are probably some other things that can be seen in a simple story, but the beauty of a parable is its multi-layeredness. You could discover something that the author was completely oblivious of.

Wrestling with God; Down on the Mat but Still Laughing

2009-02-16T23:22:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine sent me a letter awhile ago about his wrestling with doubt. I waited an enormously long time and then began to write him back. But after writing it, I realized how what I'd written sort of crystalized my current thoughts on faith. So I decided to share them with you all here.

Sorry, I haven’t written you back sooner. I kept telling myself that to be able to even address anything you put in that letter many months ago, I had to be on a certain level of spirituality and understanding which I naturally lack. And which, I’ll probably never arrive at in this lifetime. But I see this as a main problem of our current idea of what it means to be a Christian. –That is our form of Protestantism’s obsession with certainty and perfectionism. No wonder that guilt so plagues us.

I think that you are doing a good thing. Searching that is. I noticed you categorizing yourself as “fallen” seekers. I believe that there is no such thing as "fallen" seekers. But that yet we are all “fallen” seekers. If you think that’s contradictory…well, that’s exactly what I want you to start opening yourself towards. You are wrestling right now with God which is my belief of where He’d want you rather than sitting smugly having everything figured out.

I disagree with you though in your assertion that you must go through doubt to get over it or embrace it. I don’t think that there is any getting over doubt. It will always exist alongside faith. If you abandon your faith in God, and if you are still honest with yourself and still a seeker then you will in turn Doubt that (non)god you have chosen. And likewise, if you mean to embrace your faith in God with full certainty you will always catch shadows of disappointment and doubt. For that is one thing God is not…certain to hold to prescribed conceptions of Him. When we do this it is idolatry.
Faith and Doubt coexist with each more than is comfortable with most people. It is when we try to erase one for the other that problem arises. Merely because faith cannot be faith without doubt. And we certainly cannot doubt without faith in something. There is a great untruth in our modern world that gives birth to both the atheist and the Christian fundamentalist. That is you can reduce things all to a rational order. In truth, both are closer to the same way of apprehending and organizing the universe than either one would like to admit. They both are terrified of Mystery. They both need bedrock foundation and absolute certainty to construct their universes. One uses strict empiricism the other uses rationalism in the Bible in a strictly literal, narrow sense. Point out that there are paradoxes in either system and the whole foundation falls. Be open to paradox, for in that you are coming to God, who is beyond any limitation. Though don’t ever expect to grasp God, He grasps you.

This deals with your desire if you pull through to help “people who are not satisfied with shallow answers”.
The shallow answers are shallow merely because they exist to gap up wide, deep gulfs that are not meant to be gapped up. These wide gulfs point to God’s transcendence. One by one the shallow answers fall as though into a bottomless bucket of absent space. We neither hear if they shatter or thud. They are flimsy man-made constructions into the darkness of mystery. –Little calculators and abacuses thrown into the ocean. But what you must be satisfied with is that perhaps the answers will never be known. God never answers Job’s questions with answers; he only answer’s him with more questions. And this goes for either side of the fence of a/theism. Many Christians struggle to reconcile the concept of suffering with the existence of a Good God, but as for me it is much more difficult to reconcile the existence of joy and love with the belief in nothing. If you choose either belief you must wrestle with the question and mystery that each postulates.

Here’s the statement of the hour. I believe in the existence of God because He cannot be proven. If He was a thing to be proved then He would cease to be God. A god that is measurable and able to be understood would be under us. The mere understanding of Him not being understood gives me faith in God. Comprehension is always a downward reach. What is above us will always be slipping out of our grasp. There may be a hint or a nudge that something is there, but full apprehension and full staking down always eludes us. The mere absence of God through our senses may mean that he is hyperpresent or much more present and real then everything else. That is a Being who is so near, and/or so great that our faulty senses and modes of perception fall short when grasping for Him.

We can only measure and quantify the elements and the species that we hold dominance over. We can prove that salamanders exist and that pomegranates exist and even that certain stars exist. But even in these proofs, science is constantly shifting in what it labels and how it understands what it labels. “Pluto is a planet, no, it’s a moon, no it’s a just floating rock out in space.” And so on. There is much speculation on even solid objects. Maybe Freud would say it is a mere speck on our telescope lens and we attribute it as a planet because of some unfulfilled wish during childhood, or maybe Darwin would suggest it as merely the shadow of what our earth used to be before it progressed to where we are now. And according to Nietzche, its his overman who has willed his way to soar though space. For Marx, the planet was tired of being the runt peasant of the solar system and decided to break away from the chains and play its own game. And you can’t forget Pat Robertson who would probably be suspect to say that it’s a huge, massive hornet’s nest sent from the angry hands of God to smack into the earth because of all its sodomy and debauchery. And either one of these things could be a far-off possibility. Probably not, but who really knows. And that’s just a rock out in space. A thing of actual matter and measurable dimensions. How much more unfathomable is the Unfathomable?

In a lot of ways, you are where you need to be. One must betray the idea of God before he can break out and interact with the full God that is. Abraham did this when he first moved out of his native land and when he went on a walk with Isaac to the altar spot. Moses did this when he listened to a burning bush. And all the first disciples had to do this to accept the Christ whom those who were caught up in their idea of God as God had called a blasphemer. This coming Thursday, I am going to this meeting at a pub where an Irish theologian is going to met with a group of us. We’ll drink beer and talk about these paradoxes and share a few of our own parables. I’ve written two. In the course of the next few weeks. I’m going to post them on facebook. I’ll be sure to tag you in them. For sometimes I think parables have a deeper way of communicating truth. If it were not so, why did Christ use them so much. Instead of babbling on about lists and doctrines and how-to-be saved formulas? But no, He chose stories.
Anyways, this theologian’s name is Peter Rollins. And much of the books he's written deal with what I’ve been talking about.

I have to tell you how blessed I've been in the past 2-3 years. For I’ve been meeting at this church where questions that you have are not immediately brushed off with pat answers. No, the whole atmosphere is conducive towards exploration. Realizing that differing degrees of truth can thrive at the same time with different people. Condemnation and judgment is reserved where it should be…in the hands of God only. I have learned not to see everything so black and white. But in full colors Which fits with my personality to begin with. This church is Emergent. Or into the whole Emergent Discussion or Movement. Maybe you could find something in your area that has the same thing. There is a fresh new but ancient wind stirring up in various places in the world. As a whole the way we define, and hopefully the rest of the world defines Christianity is changing. Ultimately the way we define or better worded "don't define" God is changing. It’s quite exciting.

Also…one last thing. Always wrestle with the idea that Christ is the ultimate paradox. God in flesh. God as sin. God bleeds. God goes through death. Nothing else is truly as mind-boggling as that. To follow Him is never a clear cut path. He’s just plain exasperating, full of riddles most of the time. It’s not a step one to step two to step three and so on. Sometimes we have to go back to go forward. And sometimes we think we are back when we are really forward and vice versa. You are not in such a bad place as you imagine. It's just the paradigm in which you find yourself of our modern world in that everything must be explained and understood. But if everything could be explained and understood then we'd be the only gods. But this is not the case. So throw out all those Lee Strobel books; embrace the Philokalia. Think. Explore. Wonder. There is a time when the most agonizing wonder turns into love. It is only then that we can penetrate into anything.

There are several books of note. Brian McLaren's "A New Kind of Christian" helped me out. As did G.K. Chesterton's own struggle with paradox in his "Orthodoxy" and you cannot forget Chesterton's "The Everlasting Man" which actually helped out an atheistic C.S. Lewis. And there's Pete Rollins books whom I mentioned earlier. "How (Not) to Speak of God.", "The Fidelity of Betrayal" and so on. Oh, and then there's "The Shack" which is okay. But I kind of doubt you'd like it.

My thoughts and prayers are with you,

Of All the Ideas for Valentine's Day; A Poem

2009-02-13T10:29:00.000-08:00

With the first blushes of Valentine's Day,
The idea sprang to my scheming mind,
The heart's vision in fancy's realms play.
Romance and boredom how they meet and grind,
Ideas born. (and they say Cupid is blind.)
Of all the sweet things to do, act, or say,
I can see such heart-shaped lightbulbs behind.
Any object under moon's lamp or sun's ray.
That gives solidarity to this day.

I should gather the flowers of the field,
Wild and savage, ravishing and rare,
Those that a hundred colors yield,
To the vibrant-impressioned sunny glare,
Where hangs the spirit of beauty in the air.
I'd pluck these and dub each a quality,
From her multi-petalled, many-hued air,
And label a thousand flowers quantity,
For her thousand-flecked personality.

I'd stand before the glowing Court of the Moon,
And caught up in the magic of the wild night,
Entreat the nighttime orbs in solemn swoon,
To play their sweet music of silver bright,
When all is sound hushed in twinkling light.
For her, only her, this sky symphony play.
The beaming strings strummed by a tranquil wind.
Soft melodies in solemn-couched clouds stray,
To her ear. Silver songs that weave and blend,
All this beauty, with her beauty within.

I'd embark for the rich land of Sleep,
And bring back a treasure chest full of dreams,
Sublime dreams that waft and hover and keep,
The intoxication of joy that beams,
In all its happy, blissful-raptured scenes,
They'd dangle from her hands, hair, neck, and ears,
A Dream adorned by dreams in wakeful bloom.
But all these gifts, there's one question that sears,
When looking about this stark, barren room,
I'd give these all, but I'd give these to whom?

The Myth of Brad Brascoe or The Ladies Just Don't Understand

2009-01-28T21:13:00.000-08:00

For awhile there he was nameless. I just sensed him like a phantom behind every single girl that I've ever been interested in. But after various experiences, I began to learn of him. Know him. And in effect, dread him. Though I've never ever officially met Brad Brascoe, I know all about him.

It became apparent when any time I was remotely interested in a lady, she always seemed to be talking to various other guys. Usually the one that she chatted with most was Brad Brascoe.

Also whenever an ex or an old flame, or fling, or even just a crush found someone just after the closure (or the closest thing to a closure)...well, that person was also Brad Brascoe.

And whenever I was wrapped in the arms of a lady and the first disenchanted look fell on her face and there was a pause --what was she thinking about? Why, it was none other than, you guessed it, Brad Brascoe whom she had dated before or whom she had just met at Starbucks that week.

Gentlemen, you know exactly what I speak of. Somewhere, sometime you've called some lady's number with the artful intention of hooking up but found her number to be busy. Who could she be talking and ecstatically giggling with?....Brad Brascoe.

Another time, another place perhaps another girl you thought of taking the internet approach but on her facebook page there is always some ostentatious shmuck with his shirt off or surrounded by children who writes flirtatious things on her wall. Who else?...Brad Brascoe.

It was always a difficult thing to learn of him. But I found that if one sits and broods about it long enough then even characteristics about him begin to surface. So what are his characteristics and traits? You'll notice certain traits clearer than others depending upon what type of girl you are after. But after awhile of seeming to get no where with a particular lady certain peculiarities are gleaned. Maybe they dawn on you in your sleep. Or maybe they dawn on you when you have asked a lady out and no reply is coming quite as fast as you like. And if there is a "no", well, then Mr. Brascoe's characteristics all come out all the more colorful. Here is what I know about Brad Brascoe.

I once thought that the list of countries that I've been to were kind of fascinating and impressive, until I learned that Brad Brascoe had been to every single country that I'd been to and many others...the biggest difference is that he had helped build orphanages in these countries as well.
...dang that Brad Brascoe.

He just finished his law degree but is deciding to become a doctor instead to help the ailing of the world. For his undergrad, he turned down a full-ride scholarship to MIT in order to go on a Humanitarian Aid trip to the Amazon with professors from Harvard. But he had to come back to see to the 4 businesses he's started since he was a teenager. One of these businesses is about lost puppies being reunited with their grieving families.
...dang that Brad Brascoe.

You know he spends his Saturdays visiting a nursing home where he plays piano for all the old ladies. They try to marry him off to their granddaughters and they bake him pies. He takes these pies and turns around and gives them to the leper colony down on 5th Street.
...dang that Brad Brascoe.

He's a horse whisperer. He can talk to the horses. But he only rides bareback. This he does while he juggles bouquets of flowers.
...dang that Brad Brascoe.

The only way to explain his looks is to point out the fact that random people in public have stopped him several times to say, "You must look just what Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's children will look like one day". That, and he’s caused three wrecks at three separate times from just walking down the sidewalk. Now he wears a toboggan or cap to disguise his good looks. But everytime he sees a homeless man he gives him his toboggan or cap and he’s once again outstandingly good looking and radiant and causing traffic accidents again.
...dang that Brad Brascoe.

Rumor has it that every now and then a message is left on his answering machine saying something to the effect of, “Hi, Brad Brascoe, this Mr. Sparks…Umm Nick again. Call me if you’ve got the time. I’ve run out of ideas again.”
…dang that Brad Brascoe

He, of course, plays guitar. There is not a guitarist like him. It is rumored that half the women in the audience pass out from sheer exuberance overload. He could've gotten a record deal but his mother told him that she couldn't see her son living the rock'n'roll lifestyle. He wasn't going to listen at first but sign the record deal anyway for he is something of a rebel, but his mother ended up passing away. So now, in her honor, he'll only play for that one special lady that he hopes to find in his life.
...dang that Brad Brascoe.

He likes to give massages in his spare time.
…dang that Brad Brascoe.

Brad Brascoe reads voraciously and can quote authors right and left. He can beat anybody in a debate, but he rarely argues. Although he is never ever wrong with the facts or the concepts, he almost always allows the other person, especially when they are female to think themselves as being right. For 14 consecutive weeks, he has been the contending champion on Jeopardy. And during one of these shows his competition was none other than the creator of the television series, “Sex in the City”. They got to be really good friends and because Brad Brascoe let him win the final round of Jeopardy, this TV mogul imparted all his knowledge and all his understanding that he knew about women to Brad Brascoe.
...dang that Brad Brascoe.

In high school he was quarterback, SGA president, Valedictorian, the Homecoming King, and the lead actor in the Homecoming play. But he had to disappear midway through his senior year because he helped save someone's life who the Mafia had tried to kill. Then the Mafia had it in for him. He stay hid for 3 months until he was eventually found out by some of the mob, but he single-handedly beat down all 6 of them with a coat hanger. Now the Mafia respects him and he gets free pasta dishes at Carrabba's.
...dang that Brad Brascoe.

I once heard from a girl that kissed him that he tastes and smells just like the richest, dark chocolate. -Not that mass produced stuff. No, like the carefully melted and stewed fudge fondue from the forests of Switzerland. She described kissing him as "floating in a stream of hot, sensuous Godiva."
...dang that Brad Brascoe.

He used to be a yacht magazine model. There are lots of pictures of him out on the ocean blue, in front of sails with his shirt ripped off and his bronze-toned, six-pack and pecks gleaming in the sun. He was so good at this that he won the Champion Yacht Magazine Model of the Decade and won a free yacht. He used to sail medical supplies to impoverished countries...that was until he happened on an undiscovered island in the Caribbean. Now he owns his own yacht AND tropical island.
...dang that Brad Brascoe.

Some great-uncle of his passed away and it became known that he was the next in line of royal blood of the dukedom of Luxembourg. He inherited a large castle, a butler, and the local florist shop and chocolate boutique. Not to mention some fine collection of jewelry. This started him on a frantic quest for the most beautiful diamond in existence. He searched high and low never finding the one diamond that struck his fancy. So he stopped his hunt for a short while. That is until, he happened to rescue an entire Jewish family from a house fire. They quickly gave him access to the greatest jewelry around the world for a discounted price and he found his one true diamond on a ring. And the Jew who sold it to him said that he would only depart from this beloved diamond ring if Brad Brascoe would swear to only give it to the one true love of his life. He agreed and now he keeps it in a royal cabinet in his royal castle awaiting its true possessor.
…dang that Brad Brascoe

Really, truly, and in all actuality, maybe….I don’t know....perhaps…. he’s just a man who simply believes in himself.
…dang that Brad Brascoe.

Adventures in Writing

2009-01-22T09:15:00.001-08:00

So I have been writing more lately. Oh no, not these cumbersome sort of notes, where one has to appear narcissistic to indulge one’s deep-felt need to communicate –to speak, and above all else –that divine function –to create.

But I’ve been delving into sentences where they run the greater chance of only being seen by my own eyes. Alone paragraphs that are definitely born in solitude, could sadly span its life in solitude, and quite possibly, die in solitude. It’s a horrible thought for the types of people who feel that they must deliver something to other people. But my skin’s become tougher over the years. I find the falling of a quiet night inviting. My nature seems to thrive in the mysterious silence of the night, even as much as the maddening buzz and hum of this globe which I seem to wander through.

Lately, I have been to a writer’s group. Nothing particularly fancy. About the only thing that St. Clair County in Alabama has to offer. But I saw it as an opportunity nevertheless for some form of coaching, which I believe I may need. You see, I’m a little weak on full guidance on just how to write. In the scholastic world, up and down the country, schools teach you one thing…how to sound like the student before you. Whereas the serious advocate of any art is after how to sound like himself. This is one of the great ironies in learning to write.

As for this writer’s group in Alabama...you’d be surprised at such places in the South. For once the football ruckus ceases to cheer or pout, and in between the larger than life fishes caught and deer snagged, there out of the grappling kudzu emerges semi-cultured types who’d be willing to arm wrestle William Faulkner, or out spit Flannery O’Conner in a watermelon spitting contest, all in order to win that Pulitzer Prize…but only if it requires them to focus on such huge themes of our Southland….strange accents, religion or fundamentalism, poverty, and dare I forget racism.
These constant themes strung along in dusty realism that drags one through the flat cottonfields as you read it. So this is what I find in my writers’ group. Three old women constructing their own Gone with the Winds. Actually nothing that good or epic even. Just struggling memoirs that would make you wish that Gen. Sherman would come down again and blaze another path with fire but this time using some of their pages as kindling.

But in all honesty, one of the ladies, the leader, of the group is noteworthy. Her advise is very legitimate and everything she says I hold onto, but sometimes I feel like her scope is a bit narrow. As though she looks through only Magnolia tinged lens. But her skills as a methodical critic are very good. Better than I could ever be.

Another of the ladies is not Southern, not even American. She’s German. Her accent is exceedingly strong. Everytime she speaks, I always imagine that she is talking about some gingerbread house in a secluded Bavarian forest. But unfortunately, I found her not so fanciful as that. I really thought that the German would exude some rich, brilliant traces of Goethe. But, I forgot, no Germans think like Goethe anymore. There’s not a romanticist left in the country. They’ve all morphed into Kafka, with more of a penchant for precision than an insect would have. So this old German frau was fervently into a sort of reductionist science. Wanting to only read or write what could actually take place. Ask a German to accept suspension of disbelief and they scoff. But one thing she said, I think truly shows keen observation on the southern literary scene and that was her visit to a large mansion in Georgia where she presented one of her self-published novels. It was a work set in Southeast Asia, and the Georgian couple were appalled and really thought that she was going to focus the setting on them, that is the South, about the southern gentility, about the willows that hung over the path to their mansion, and all the “Yes, sirs” and “No, ma’ams” that you could fit in between two covers. It’s as though they thought the only novel to be written was southern. The German joked about this and the egocentric behavior of this belle and beaux. But I find the thing indicative of the beliefs of the majority of a lot of authors and readers. That is read and write only what you know. I can’t fathom that. If one must be confined in one’s physical location, why confine one’s imagination to the same location? Why not imagine and discover a bit more? But no, the chief goal of most southern authors is to write that “Puh-fect Suuth-uhn Nov-uhl”.

And there’s only two ways to go about this southern novel, and believe it or not, its not whether its black or white, it’s either rich or poor. It’s southern aristocracy sipping sweet tea under a verandah on a sweltering day in July, or it’s a hard-luck family sweating in the pea patch on the same sweltering day in July. But either way you go, I feel its all worn out. Yes, those mockingbirds never truly die but keep warbling and mimicking on; they’re impossible to kill.

So I was the only person in this group below the age of 60 and the only male. I brought with me this short story that I had just finished called, “Maguerite of the Skies” A fantastical piece that deals with the exaggeration or overabundance of themes, rather than the rustic narrative of life as it is. It is about this stewardess who was the very emblem of beauty, but only when she was in the air. When the plane and crew landed she became ordinary. Perhaps, I wanted to say something about the nature of beauty, the nature of inspiration, and possibly the nature of ideals as a whole. But I must have failed in my execution because nobody at this literary tea party could understand why I would write a clearly humorous, quirky piece about such unbelievable events. It lacked realism the German said. Well, of course it did. If I wanted to bog myself down in matter-of-factness then what’s the point of writing fiction. I might as well write grocery lists.

It’s not as though I’m against realism, I mean, Russian realism is some of the greatest stuff out there. Here you have the author, say for instance, Dosteovsky taking the reader through depressing scenes of misery and poverty. The dragging kind of misery, that makes all life seem a burden. And he does it wonderfully well. Maybe that’s his genius alone. Which many try to copy but few can actually do.

Or maybe it’s just the fact that I don’t like reading about things that seem so commonplace. I mean “Old Yeller”, “The Yearling” and “Where the Red Fern Grows” all bored me as a kid. I could just go over to my mother’s hometown and get the same dialogue and stories. It seemed so ordinary. I wanted to escape –to go to a place that I’d never been before. Give me a story about King Arthur or Robin Hood. About Odysseus or D’Artagnan. Just not another blasted tale about a southern poor boy with his pet.