shore leave

gosh its so strange to write from my own room -- like the excitement and isolation of travel cast a potent crucible where the words burn white. being home feels slow and constricted a bit, and I am finding myself dangerously tantalized by a life on the road. work has whetted my wanderlust , and I am becoming obsessed with touching geography intimately, a look and feel not quite satisfied by google earth (though it is fun to hover over half dome and try to find the closest cheese steak shop). My recent reconnection with two of my favorite musical phenomena is only more indicative of my itchy feet: gypsies and tom waits pour through my head all day. i have watched this youtube clip of shore leave at least 25 times, and its affecting my world view. tom waits knows how to bring you to a place and drown you in the provincial kitsch:


Well I was pacing myself
trying to make it all last
squeezing all the life
out of a lousy two day pass
and I had a cold one at the Dragon
with some Filipino floor show
and talked baseball with a lieutenant
over a Singapore sling
and I wondered how the same moon outside
over this Chinatown fair
could look down on Illinois
and find you there

more than the song, i am always blow away by seeing tom waits exploding on stage. he is channeling howlin wolf up there i swear to god.

I get to be old in Rio too!

My time is winding down in Rio and i had a rather lovely day, despite the lack of action, or sunshine. After hitting the beach for an hour or so, tasting the atlantic and trapping some sand in those hard to reach places between my toes, I decided to go on one of these organized tours. I know, it's not sexy, but I felt bored and itching to see some sites. Plus you just dont know what's safe and what isnt. This is the kind of city where you make a wrong turn and BAM!, you wake up in a bathtub full of ice, about 5 kilos lighter.

anyway, i had the hotel staff reserve the tour. I havent been on a vacation so long, I've forgotten the joys of a well connected concierge. "No problem, Mr. Don, you come down at 2:20, the bus will pick you up." Around that time, mas o menos, the driver came in and yelled '510' . This is me -- even down here I am instantly recognized as an East Bay all-star. I gave him a thumbs up (this is what brazlieros do), followed the man outside, and was overjoyed to discover that the "bus" was actually an old beat up Peugot Boxer. Kind like this guy with windows:


I hopped into the van, which had seats for at least 40 people, despite being only slightly larger than a ford taurus. instantly, i was greeted with a festive 'hola!' from an older mexican couple, while a recently employeed indian graduate student cautiously shook my hand. up front was fabio, (this appears to be a common name down here... they dont seem to get it when I say "No fucking way" everytime a fabio introduces himself to me), some random cute girl who's only role, apparently, was to fondle fabio, and an unnamed driver, who was unheard and unseen the entire trip.

off we went! braving the streets of rio in a giant white box. we hit the usual sites, stopping first at the national cathedral, which smacked of christy spaceship cum yerte on acid. the pope came here like 10 years ago and everyone creamed themselves. good times!



we leave the van to take some pictures. fabio and his girl make out a little, which is great for him, but our ultimate goal was to hit the suger loaf, or Pão de Açúcar (dont't worry, i don't know what any of these diacritic marks sound like either). on our way out there, we meandered through el centro, the downtown area of Rio. Commercially abandoned by the weekend, and robbed of any potential charm by a low hanging sky, the city appeared to us in its barest, post-apocolyptic form. Barefoot children, running after each other in the streets, merchants selling chewing gum and trinkets on the sidewalk, and scores of destitute young people, standing around, milling about, crashed out, hung over, and otherwise killing time, the only commodity god had allotted them. it wasnt shocking, but sad, like driving throuh the west side of chicago on a wednesday afternoon. i was happy to see this up close, even happier to be protected by 2 tons of french engineering. on the other hand, when was the last time the french engineered anything worthwhile? the bechemal sauce doesnt count. moving on...

slowly, we made our way to the bottom of the sugar loaf, all the while under the stern eye of the magnicient jesus on the hill. big jesus is watching you all the time, homes. apparently no one told the whores. we arrive to the bottom of the hill and where i am stoked for the cable car ride! we climb and climb to the top of the mountain -- overly medicated english women are grabbing me in fright, and i think fabio is getting a covert handjob in the back. when we get to the top i ask him how many times he's been on this rock. 'thousands. it's not so emotional for me any more.' must be tough -- desensitized to the loaf.

the views from the top were sweet as you can imagine:



my tour friends drop me off at my hotel, wishing me the best, and i give them a thumbs up and i remind myself that i need to stop doing this in the States, where i would be perceived like a total jerkoff, or worse, the President.

when i arrive to the hotel, Andreas, my concierge suggests a seafood place where the gentleman can enjoy all he can eat. i was famished and quite partial towards creatures of the sea, so i had him reserve me a table. when i arrived at the place, the joint was empty, which meant i had 7 people serving me at once. feeling like a mob boss, i kicked back, ordered someone to make me a gin and tonic and began at the "starters"buffet. there, i selected only the finest:

* shrimp salad in pasta
* risotto shrimp
* squid with some wierd shit in it
* cold potatoes
* green salad
* several different olives
* pasta salad with crab


i passed on the oysters for fear of the yellow-eyed death.

then the real magic began, one at a time , these guys took turns bringing me more and more dishes. feeling like audrey griswald in european vacation, i consistently made the same "holy shit" face, for fear of public explosion. during this time, i enjoyed

* popcorn shrimp
* wierd random shrimp in at least three varieties
* grilled lobster
* sauteed lobster
* paella
* fresh cod
* octopus
* fried calamari
* mussels baked in their shell, in cheese
* shrimp baked in some sort of shell, with cheese
* various fried vegetables
* some wierd but delicious cheesy / mayonaisey puff
* more paella

Then, this guy has the gall to ask me " would you like some steak?" umm, i dont think so, pal. chatting with the staff all the while, i found eating alone less lonely than usual. I topped all of this off with some fresh mango and a limey tart, some brazilian facsimile for key lime pie. I rolled out of that joint (literally), had the doorman grab me a cab, and headed back home.

when i arrived back at the hotel , i exchanged high fives with Andreas the concierge (he is my boy) and he motioned me to turn around. down the stairs came a stunner -- the kind they put in the brochures. it was unclear what was fake and what was real, but in fantasy land that doesnt matter i guess. Andreas winks at me and tells me that for $100 an hour she'll come back up with me. Let me tell you something about the staff at the Luxor Regente. Not only will they book you tours, buy you cigarettes and reserve you seats at empty restaurants, they will pimp out girls and then make you feel like less of a man for not buying pussy. It is a wierd ethos here at the Copa. She gets in her cab, makes eye contact with me, lowers her window, and via a complex network of portuegese note passing, i receive her digits.

I guess I just dont get the point of any of it. I mean, why risk a moral impasse, not to mention long term neurosis about my dick falling off, just to bust a nut? Is this the wrong attitude? Andreas seems to think so. I should just give him the money and my room and let him have some fun. Maybe it's a mitzvah? Besides, my room is a mess (i dont really trust the help) and for some reason i think its rude to invite a whore up to a messy room. my mother would be so proud.

Turning down sex for hire, i retired to my room, where i cozied up in bed and watched the only american movie showing, Mel Gibson's powerful "What women want". ding ding ding! Don Baron, this IS the gayest moment of your life.

Let's go OAK-LAND

Back from the beach, where the sun seems to evacuate the premises every time I lie down. Still, it is GREAT to read this news:

Giants get nailed 15-3.

Barry Zito, looking like a dipshit in orange and black (it's hard not to), getting rocked in his return back to the Coliseum.

Maybe my room number had something to do with it?

Rio

it's been a long day, friends. I arose this morning, packed up all my belongings -- two backpacks as you know. the osi coworkers figured it would be a good day to walk to the office, and when we arrived, i realized that I still had no accomodations in rio, and my main hookup -- the boss of brazil -- vitoria, was nowhere to be found, despite several calls to her mother. luckily, fabiano, half shark alligator half borat, was on top of it:



seriously, F-bomba saved my life. he figured out which flight i should use to get to rio, found me a hotel, and still had enough decency not to be alarmed by my neurosis. "Don, you are a freaking. it is no good for you to the freak."

as he was planning my trip, Vitoria, came to the office. vitoria is clearly in charge down here. she wields a tough brand of love which evokes memories of both a forgotten brazilian aunt and mussolini. within seconds, she was in action . "Don, you should not walk on the copacabana beach very late. there will be whores, and, como você diz?..... the homosexuals. they will offer you sex, and for $300. maybe you say $50 and then they kill you right there." i tried to assure her that bargaining with brazilian whores wasn't on my trip itinerary. she went on, "and maybe you call the police but you dont want to go to the brazilain jail. they are worse than the bandits. they will beat you TO HELL, and fuck you too." ok, i got it. "plus, all the whores are men. do you know how to tell the men from the women?" i suggested the standard crododile dundee trick "i just check their cock". "No , you look at their hands." anyway, Vitoria, god bless her, set me up with a car to the airport from god forsaken sao paulo. Look at this mess:



i took her warnings in stride. i am already expecting to be hogtied, de-kidneyed and sodomized in this town anyway. still, i needed some infrastructure. she set me up with a car to pick me up from the airport in rio and drive me to my hotel. she told me that for R$300 a man would drive me around for the whole weekend, but i wasnt too interested in solo time with caesar. my nerves, damaged by the south american temperment, need beach, drink and peace. if anything, i was hoping for a group tour with some limber sextagenarians to tie me over.

i board a plane to rio. when i arrive, caesar couldnt make it. instead noberto is there with a sign that reads very simply, "Mr. Don." my only regret. my ONLY regret, was that i felt awkard snapping a shot of him right out of the gate. i had the camera out and i was chuckling, but i didnt want to offend this gentleman while we were still in our honeymoon phase. norberto takes me to the hotel, and suggest we immediately go to the giant jesus on the hill. ok, i say, lets see this magnifiscent jesus on the hill. we tool through the flatlands of rio, driving around a gorgeous lake, surrounded by colonial era flats, pass through a tunnel and suddenly, we are asescending up cobblestone roads, lush ferns surrounding us. when we get to the top, Noberto has to drop me off, and i make the final climb alone, to the big jesus on the hill. there he is! JC himself, 200 feet tall, arms spread outward. there is a serious look on his face which i read as "someday, none of this will be yours , jewboy. " still, i snap some shots of him. some are in the clark griswald manner:

while others are an ode to the kids in the hall:




but on the way down, we stopped and took in Rio from above. it is a dusky, defeated, brazilian sun, desperately shooting out orange to fight off the night. failing in its attempts, but so beautiful in its demise, burning orange in ethanol skies:


we see the city from above:


stunning.

norberto drives me home, and after some difficulties with the cash machine, i pay his fare. it's like vincent vega said, its the little things that catch your eye. like the security gaurd in front of the cash machine with the bullet proof vest. norberto deposits me at my hotel. in my room, i find interesting art which induces me to chain smoke:




despite my newfound appreciation for brazilian warning labels:




they say brazil is a country of contradictions. they are right.

it is getting dark (winter time here), but I am determined to find a place to watch your world champion chicago bulls face the pistons of detroit. after several calls, the concierge makes it happen! i descend to the copacabana streets, looking for my sports bar. it is dark, and yes, there is whoring about, but my head is down and i try to attach myself to three indian graduate students. in my mind, they are here for some sort of symposium on solid state electronics, but are making the best of it. i follow them until i approach o rue miguel limons, and make a left. another quick left at Avenue N.S Copacobana, and smack! i'm at the sports bar. i head to the back of the joint, settle into my seat and within 10 minutes .0001% of the entire south side of chicago arrives. old black folks are drinkin beers and cheerin on kirk hinrich and i am in heaven. each one of them reminds me more and more of my old pal jonathan eldridge. those of you who know him will understand.

i ask frank why he's out here. "oh you know, chicago is the shit , but i got to GO!." i hear you there, big francis. a couple jack daniels and several beers later, the bulls are down big and the season is on the line.

the bulls give it away, but i got to see it go down in the hottest, sweatiest, sexiest, humidest, gorgeousest, wettest, southest motherfucker in the world. beat that.

Sao Paulo adventures? No thanks.

It's been subdued in Sao Paulo, and probably for the better. I have been working since 7am and am just now finishing up. Normally I would be stir crazy, but I am almost relieved to be busy because a) I rather enjoy the hotel life and b) it's basically the Wild West out there. every once in a while you hear screaming, or a car screeching it's tires then ramming something, and ramming again and again... scary shit, and this is the good part of town!

I ventured out briefly today for a 'hot dog'. I was curious to hit MickeyDs and in my head I was already have a 'LeBigMac v. Royale w/ Cheese moment' when I walked past Black Dog, where the local kids hang out to smoke cigarettes, babble, and look illegally good. After some hand waving I ordered a soy dog, with curry and mayonnaise. Hey, you can't win 'em all!

Speaking of winners check out this guy:




















That's right ! A warning label the size of a cigarette pack! Finally! I think the Canadians do this too, but not the whole pack. Maybe 70%. This pack of cigarettes cost $1.50. This guy should be a lot gnarlier if they are planning to deter me at those prices!

Anyway, today I got nostalgic for Germany. You heard me. Walk the streets, throw benches into rivers, laugh it off, eat kabobs, piss on the bar floors for reparations. Good times! Today I got nostalgic for Germany. Sao Paulo -- not so much. Although I have to say, more than one person here has reminded me of Borat. Naaaaaaaaaeeeiiiiiice!

earlier today i delivered a talk entitled "Visualização na “Empresa de Tempo Real"" . your guess is as good as mine. apparently it was a great hit -- brazilians love me! when they say hello, they touch and kiss me. they serve me only their finest meats, bathe me in coca-cola light, and offer me hotel-room porno.

but, i am shocked by my inability to understand them in their native tongue. every time i travel to a non-english speaking country, i encounter the same phenomenon. symptoms of my condition include:

1) overarching jealousy of little children, who, despite their mental inferiority to me (not to speak to their obvious physical disadvantages), have some sort of magical ability to weave phonemes into a useful portuguese sentence. hate em.

2) loud english. a technique usually reserved for communicating with the deaf and my parents, I find it sometimes also works with foreigners. at the very least, extreme decibels can get these people out of your face.

3) hand waving and ass shaking. no one can deny the efficacy of hand gestures as a focal point of non-verbal communications. for some reason, when i shake my ass, brazilians nod and smile. then they put dollar bills in my dental floss g-string. ole!

4) an unhealthy dependency on CNN International. ok i get it, the chinese must be handled carefully in business matters and africa is fucked. still, i can't turn it off. even now, sitting in my room working away, i can here the familiar, soft cadence of my adopted homeland.

despite our language issues, they still welcome me with open arms. they suggest drivers and hotels for my stay in rio. 'i will call caesar for you. he is a good man , with the wife and kids. he will take you to the big christ on the hill, and to the sugerloaf. you should not be scar-ed with him.'

what can i say. what can't i say! they love me in brazil.

The ozone layer is fucked. Trust me.

You can go to all the green rallies you like.
You can write your congressperson in an inflammatory tone.
You may be outraged about the environment, and you may think you can do something to help.

You can't.

Try driving 90 minutes through bumper to bumper traffic in Sao Paulo and see how your lungs feel, and imagine what it would take to change things. Now imagine Beijing, Rio, Moscow, and Mexico City, a symphony of atmospheric sodomy.

You may want to consider the neutron bomb for starters.

I staggered into my hotel room, nauseous and dizzy from the fumes of 50,000 diesel trucks, cabs, and fiats. I showered the grime off of myself and took a nap. I dreamt that I was in Pakistan, underneath a pile of sand, struggling breath by breath.

Brazil beginnings

i packed earlier today. I filled two backpacks, thus making both of them difficult to deal with at once. this packing technique, as well as an unshaven face, torn up cargo pants, and a bad attitude were my attempts to look non-rob-worthy . collecting my bags, i walked down liberty st to valencia, taking my first steps of a long journey. i dont think it matters how many times i get on airplanes to strange countries , those first steps seem daunting, that so many things can go wrong between departure to return. i carried my packs downhill to find a taxi to take me to the airport, and, as i somehow expected, my cab driver was from Sao Paulo. he warned me , as so many had before, on the dangers of this trip, not to wear watches or jewelry (covered! no bling, not for me). victor seemed to be doing ok for himself. the back of his head seemed healthy and he and i shared a penchant for bushy sideburns and the three day stuble (well, six in my case). driving this cab, riding out his soon-expiring visa, Victor was taking this time to learn "the english", and using it well, despite an occasionally superfluous definite article and other linguistic curiosities. twice he suggested that i make sure my door is lock-ed and my window is clos-ed. both times, they were.

i made it through miami easily. recent travels have given me a bit more confidence managing airports and itineraries, and i constantly think of the sales force at our company -- some of whom need explicit instructions on how to wipe their tight asses -- and how these folks manage to navigate the worlds transportation infrastructure just fine. anyway, Miami was a success, and despite my early worries about the relatively short layover period, i hit my plane early enough to steal off for a cigarette in a poorly ventilated room where the questionable air quality, coupled with the south florida humidity, made for an interesting 3 and half minutes for my lungs. when i arrived at D46 , the reclining brazlieros suggested that there was plenty of time to spare. they reminded me in several ways of israelis -- they maniacally waved their hands when they spoke and they over applied varies creams and lotions. another unfortunate commonality: women often chose not to respect the inevitabilities of gravity; denial can have such unfortunate visual repercussions! but there was also something new world about them. certainly , most of these people were white, but their complexions varied all across the board and the men (who were far less ostentatious) looked positively american. i read earlier in my brazil book about the terrible favelas, and the destitution amongst them and i considered whether the intensity of modern social ills is directly proportional to the length of forced labor in a country. brazil did not outlaw slavery until 1888 and they were by far the greatest importers of human labor. now, descendants of this massive slave class live in areas that make me miss the tenderloin. no public power and rampant violence which has caused the brazilian authorities to shrug off any discussions of human rights -- assassination attempts from the police are common and sanctioned practice. reading about these conditions, and their inevitable spill over into more affluent neighborhoods, I wonder distantly, if there is a man or a group of men in brazil now -- perhaps sitting around the bar drinking caiprinha and laughing, maybe they are tending to their sick mothers or children, or sleeping under a piece of corrugated cardboard at this late hour -- with whom i share a fateuful meeting place. i often think of the unlikely rendezvous, like the mountain and JFK -- seemingly such unrelated entities, one providing the lead which happened to be cast into the shape of a projectile, the other encased within an all too penetrable target of flesh and hubris.

in this ultra modern aluminum boat, the tenderloin is disappearing fast behind me, but through pitch black night, i train my eyes to a northwesterly bearing, and i swear she is out there, surrounded by a warm , settling glow, smelling like sunshine, letting me know that she will be waiting when i return .

Leave your horse at home...

Gypsies gone wild in Sebastapol...

http://www.voiceofroma.com/culture/herdeljezi.shtml

I have a man crush on Baron Davis

What a way to start! Out of the gates with a homoerotic confession. But when the sports world is involved, guys get a free pass. When the object of the man-affection is Baron Davis, right now, right here in the Bay Area, no one thinks twice.

Baron Davis plays basketball as part Magic Johnson, part Capaoira master, part Hip Hop superstar. He is a ballet octopus, his appendages seemingly float him through the court space. These tentacles deposit him into unexpected places on the court allowing him to share the ball or score himself. He swaggers around like Kanye West after a three way with Hillary Clinton and Kelly Clarkson.

Test...

My first offering ....

valerie plame, you make me want to divulge all over you

has there ever been a finer representative of our central intelligence agency? the answer is no. mainly cause these people are hard to identify. sometimes they wear mustaches and look like dudes. either way, as far as we know, valerie plame is the finest CIA agent ever. i will now address my favorite VP directly:

valerie, in my evening meditations, i consider four hour interrogations where you insist i tell you everything i know about clandestine central african matters. though i know little, your fineness induces creativity i have not experienced heretofore. god bless your fine ass heart.

saddam, dead.

i realize that i'm a week late and a few dollars short, but i wanted to write something about this execution that took place. i am by no means a saddam apologist, nor do i condone genocide, internecine belligerence, foreign interventionism, or general maniacal tendencies. I just think that execution is simply wrong and does nothing except create a broader violent culture which fuels the spectre of death. if you had asked me, personally, to step into a time machine and summarily execute saddam hussein 25 years ago, i would do it, not out of vengeance but out of a true moral obligation to stop someone from creating horror everywhere he steps. but last week's pitiful excuse for 'justice' is just a thinly veiled power trip, which is entirely non-constructive and morally wrong. if you are interested in reading more, i would highly recommend this article by Christopher Hitchens:

http://www.slate.com/id/2156776/fr/flyout

peace and love,
donnyb

regarding karma, and the now defunct crocodile molestor....

Greg-o said he saw this one coming -- he's been waiting 12 years for that aussie to be stricken by some venemous aquatic beast. and let's face it, there's so many things out there that will kill you, it doesnt take much to slip up. one second you're looking confident , fearless, and positively australian... the next minute your indecipherable accent is gone, because youre dead as a doornail.

so, next time you're wrestling a crocodile, or even your girlfriend, remember that he or she whom you molest has karmic registry, and the questionable maneuvers you make against them (be they recorded on film or private) accumulate stingray death points somewhere. or to paraphrase ghandi, 'fuck with the bull, and you'll get the horns.'

i am officially done with CNN world...

thats it!! i will not watch any more of CNN world. i've had enough of iran, charles taylor, northern ireland assinations, the weather in southeast asia, proper etiquette when dealing with the chinese in business matters. i'm DONE. i'd rather watch the 4th tier polish handball league. or curling for that matter. ive never watched this much curling in my life, and i have to say, if you watch the women do it, and close your eyes, it's better than porno....

sociolinguistics esssssssssse..

i know this is like the uncoolest thing to do... post serious shit on here...but hey, sometimes you just gotta post what flows. i can take the mission hipster heat, jack.

it has come to my attention, conveyed to me by a friend , that i have just completed a tour of the most notoriously anti-semitic countries of all time. spain, germany, lithuania. my tour actually retraced almost the exact path of jewish european migrations between the 14th and 20th centuries (without the 3 stopovers in charles de gaulle).

i had first wanted to document where i was and somehow draw parallel paths between me and some ancestral crew back 500 years, but thats not gonna work. tonight is sociolinguistics essay night, so buckle up, ese.

yiddish is a sociolinguistic phenomenon that documents the movement of a people throughout a very foreign land mass. jews were in europe by the 5th century, and by the 12th century had developed languages which mixed their own alphabets with the local vernacular. pockets of culturally semi-autonomous languages began to form including ladino (spanish) and zarphatic (french).

around the 12th century, a critical mass occurred somewhere in the rhine valley, and by the 15th century, a well defined (non-pidgin) language was forming throughout germanic central europe.

like a passport stamped during a long journey, yiddish has been marked by its stopovers. slavic, semitic, and romantic inflections dot a landscape written in hebrew. as crews of jews moved eastward, they picked up pieces of the local languages, and various dialects could be found in northern europe, the balkans, poland , the baltics, russia and ukraine, germany, and elsewhere.

in the early 1930s attempts were made to standardize the language based on committee efforts in vilnius. at that time roughly 10 million people spoke the language, most of them based in europe. hundreds of daily newspapers existed throughout europe and the americas. schools, transactions, fights, debates, and plays were conducted in the langauge.

efforts to standardize was made irrelevant by an attack from central europe that was almost entirely fatal. what was started in germany was finished by an attack from a frigid east -- stalinism froze whatever corpse of a language was left.

today you can still see yiddish in kovno (kaunus) and vilna (vilnius). it marks gravestones, mass murder sites, destroyed (and ocassionally rebuilt) synagogues. consider this a cultural endpoint, or maybe the final stop in the world's shittiest bus ride. consider yiddish the bloodline of a culture constantly on the move, pushing further east as the heat from the west became hotter and hotter. consider the final one-two punch, fire and ice, squeezing the life out of sentence and song.

consider this:


(here rest the bones from the kovno ghetto (1941 - 1944) , which were burnt in 1944. they were buried in 1979)

people like to say that yiddish is not a dead language, but they are wrong. yiddish was murdered, my friends, and that makes it dead as dead can be.

i have taken to schematical drawings...

well i have made it back to germany, for an overnight stay before my return to the states. not sure how or what to blog right now, but i wanted to share a couple observations, in schematical form...

first, regarding the women of my birth country of Lithuania... it's amazingly hit or miss. for my more mathematically inclined friends, there is clearly a bimodal distribution of hotness amongst these women, with one big bump around heidi klume, and another near the area of bob villa. in other words, there are those who are extremely fine and make you realize what an untapped resource this country is, and there are others that would probably do really well on the country farm. i submit the following diagram to further describe this point :



also, while i was waiting for my dad during a dentist's appointment (he must be the only man willing to travel across the world for dental work... let's just call him eccentric), i sketched out my mouth, with a couple of angles of questionable importance:



chag sameach to those who care -- i tried meeting up with the chabad in frankfurt, but they wouldnt pick up their phone, so i guess i am left with kababs and guilt. ahhhhh judaism.

i make a contribution to the growing flooding problem in central europe....

frankfurt is a not so charming city built around a fairly charming river , the Maaaaaaain. last night drinking antics reached their climax; johnny walker came by, as did his driver, jose cuervo... leaving one bar, a pack of us made our way down the river, stumbling , careful not to fall in. i realize i have a whole lime in my pocket (of course) and this is unacceptable, so i throw it as hard as i can against a cement bridge girder. this is funner than i expect, and the others around me dont realize how much i love throwing shit into bodies of water. i find some concrete cylinders from a nearby construction site and throw them as far as i can, getting some major splash downs... i am walking west along the maiiin and the construction people seemed to have forgotten to affix a park bench to the ground. oops. i try to lift a side of it, and notice that it is totally movable but, i cannot do the work alone. a coworker of mine seems curious, but shy -- i shame him into lifting the other end... this park bench, where young lovers speak an incomprehensible language and smoke cigarettes, is all done. we drag this fucker to the river bank -- the mood in the crew is shock with a dash of glee. with an "eins, zwei, drei" we give the wooden bench a lift and toss into the swollen river, clearing the bank by a only a few feet.

normally i wouldnt condone the destruction of public property, or private property for that matter, but these people had it coming, and the doomed park bench provided some sense of release. i realized that this violated my earlier tenet of not being thrown in jail, and for a minute, i see myself being packed in a one-way train to Treblinka. but no outsiders see this, so we do a couple chest bumps and stumble into the red light district, which really is a whole different story...

soccer is so dumb....

the entire country of spain gets crazy today. real madrid v. FC barcelona. its like the yankees and red sox play twice a year, and the history between the two teams involves wars, fascism, riots, etc. so it's big here, mas grande as they say. here is a short diary of the match...

impossible to get a cab, the concierge waved his hand and said 'easy!' ... would like to give him a smack now. the cab line is 40 people long, and these poor bastards are going to miss whatever engagement their trying to get to. but i'm smart, so i walk past la rambla, past la placa de catalunya, to gran via del les corts where i hook a left and walk , trying to find a cab. my mission is to hit the stadium, and party with the good people of barcelona, who are in the midst of the closest thing they have to a holy war. i am walking. i am walking west, the map in my mind tells me this is the general direction of the stadium... walking... walking... im covering lots of blocks, i must have put 10 miles on my feet today, and i am extremely thirsty. the match starts, and i am in the street. i walk past a cafe, and realize this is how the spanish do it. they sit around, yell at each other, plow through the plates, drink a little.. they are way more interested in food than getting lit. i walk past a cafe when a huge noise erupts... it seems like some guy on FCB got tripped in the box, and he gets a free kick. people are going nuts, anticipating him punching it in... a good thirty seconds of close ups on his face, along with a nervous goalie. finally he approaches the ball, fakes left, and scores in the right side of the net. 1-0 FCB. people are going nuts now, screaming, singing ole ole ole or some such shit... i turn around and continue my trek to the pitch, horns are honking everywhere at the placa de la universitat . in the plaza i see a vague flash and have a 20 miliseconds to register that this means incoming mortar fire --- a loud explosion follows, and i realize that when the spanish light fireworks, you better watch your ass.

i contine to walk, hailing cabs, police cars, civilians, anything that seems remotely similar to a taxi. no luck.. i hear an angry spaniard scream something out his window -- he is not happy and im pretty sure he said "kfjskjdf ksjdkjsd puta skldjsjkd akjsd". i am confused and vaguely uncomfortable and 10 other barcelonans are screaming out their window now. one car honks... real madrid has tied the affair 1-1.

i find a cab, tell the man i want to go the stadium and he seems puzzled. he takes me there in the awkward silence that comes from having such a small intersecting word space. i ask him to drop me at a cerveceria near the stadium, of which he says there are many. we get there... silence. rows of police trucks looking like they just broke up something serious or are waiting for something serious to be breaken up. i walk more, no bars. ok, a few tight places where people are talking and not focusing on the game. they are wearing jerseys but are sitting down, intent on finishing the pig on their plate. no bars, in the anglo manner. no people pissing on the street. it's very quiet and dark. i expected wrigleyville and i got west rogers park. i approach the stadium in eerie silence. vague discomfort again washes over me, along with hard hitting isolation and sore feet. i realize that this is not what i expected, i come across the collblanc metro station and head back to la rambla, where i know of a couple places to stand and watch.

by the time i arrive there is like 3 minutes left in the match and it's still 1-1. i understand that i am intimately tied to this match; FCB will only score while i watch and i havent watched much , so they havent scored .

i am back at my hotel, remarkabely sober for my journey , so i spark one up (the australians were resourceful as well as friendly) and watch the game end in a draw.

a goddamn draw!!!! it's like the game never fucking happened.. are you kidding me? imagine the red sox and yankees playing to a draw .imagine getting so geared up for a game that you plan your month around it... and then, it just ends, unresolved, the equivalent of saying , "ahh , nevermind." calling this anti-climactic would be generous. anger, despondency, violence, joy, elation, hatred, tears -- these are emotional responses to some sort of event. how do you respond to a non-event. a shrug? a pat on the back? all i have to say is that i'm happy i didnt drop major euros to try to get into this game. cause these spanish would see the pressure drop ...

i meet my old pals, charles and jack...

i am back in charles de gaulle, and i already feel a kinship to the man, even though i have no idea who he was. ok, he was some big general (what was the last war france won??) and led a bunch of french governments into the ground. seriously, for a country full of beaureaucrats, i am not impressed. they should have named this airport after marseille marceau. at least that way my language problem would have been solved. anyway, more airports today and I am looking forward to 5 nights in germany and not having to unpack every two days... either way i have moved away from the ham (that last bocadilla in barcelona almost killed me) and am focusing on smoked fishes, as to prepare my systems for eastern europe:



that green thing you see is lettuce. also, the coca cola lite is a result of a reunion with another old friend, jack daniels. let's just say jack hasnt changed in all these years. even in the old world, he keeps me good company when everyone around me seems down on old db, but there is always a price to pay. im pretty sure everything went ok last night -- i seem to have all my apendages and no scars indicating any involountary organ donations. though it was a suprise waking up naked on my bed covered in ham...

it does get a bit lonely to be travelling alone, and i've only done it for a couple days. but there is something liberating about the total unaccountability of being somewhere where no one knows you, you know no one, and your only concern is not being locked up in a catalonian prison or being robbed. it is still amazing to see people i know act like this real life... but at the end of the day, are you ever accountable to anything but your conscience? what else is there? is this incredibly short sighted or the key to happiness?

off to frankfurt...

reason #45 on why spain is the place to be...

... sangwiches!!! everywhere! these people love sangwiches so much it hurts... and i'm not even talking about subway, although they got that here too, of course. i'm talking some serious ham and cheese:



you have to understand -- this photo happens like 3 times a day for me in spain. there's also some of this:



and finally.. i've never seen so much pig eating my life.



i think everything in this picture, except arguably the customer, consists entirely of pig. it's remarkable. and delicious!

regarding barcelona, and my friends from the island continent of australia...

barcelona... it's hard to explain..... it's touristy but beautiful, and i encoutered about 20 australians , 1 mexican and a few locals... the locals shared absinthe with me. i reminded them that van gough met his death by this means, but they either didnt understand, or didnt give a shit. i think it was the former. the spanish seem to have a hard time understanding my spanish, as well as my english. i made a horrible mistake and did not bring my camera with me... i need to carry it at all times, this is a new goal. tommorrow , more pics.

also,i am staying at a 4 star hotel with no AC. currently, my balls are sweating so much they are complaining about global warming, and general environonmental policy. this makes my balls officially 10 times smarter than our sitting president.

its 4:20 am... goodnight!!!

i tried writing in the journal ...

let's face it -- i'm done with the written word, at least in the literal sense... i am back to bloggin, because i type faster, the words come to me here, and i cannot copy my photos as easily as i can here... so since i have a car and there arent good bars in walking distance from el grrrrrao de castellon, i present this to you:



also i have the following questions/observations which are open to debate

1) why do europeans have so many moles? why are we in the new world immuned to facial aberrations? does this have something to do with our foreign policy? I just dont understand.

2) when in the gay neighborhood of paris, the game "gay or eurotrash" becomes a wash. information theory tells us that a situation like this is intractable ... you may as well flip a coin.

3) no country is worth visiting unless it borders the mediterranean sea. amsterdam is an exception, but its not exactly a country, so F off. seriously, i think england, germany, eastern europe, china, japan, are all useless.. i would also make exceptions to warm countries with unstable political situations, or at least those in which instability is right around the corner. this list would include: anything in south america, mexico or the carribbean. thats about it though.

hmmm that appears it for now... also, regarding the french, why all the hating? i know the jews own the media and shit, but check this out:



now, i'm no rhodes scholar , and my french is a bit weak, but i think this translates to: "he boards with keys... he rolls like that... he fronts.. he marches and shit... he carries tampons with no reason... he skips like a fag... he's got a long dong... he rides bikes...THE DANGEROUS JEW. No Matter how you vote the Jew gets in your way... BE CAREFUL."

no wonder paris is ablaze with foreign automobiles ...

my new ride....

trueno negro ???

european necktie

my trip from above.
constellations seen by the stars themselves
my european necktie.

the greatest sentence ever written...

... and i had nothing to do with it ... SHIT.

anyway, i was reading on wiki about the Reverend Fred Phelps (this christian cult leader who believes God will blow up America on account of the gays) wrote a book with some wacked conspiracy theories. Here is the sentence (with one lead-in):

"Phelps also wrote a book in the 1980s with his son-in-law, Brent D. Roper, called The Conspiracy. In the book, Roper and Phelps claim to possess evidence that AIDS spontaneously generated in Africa; Truman Capote contracted the disease during an orgy with African tribesmen; Capote then gave the disease to John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe by playing football with them; and that the CIA assassinated all three to prevent the spread of the disease."

i don't know even know where to start, so i'm just gonna leave it up there and let people comment on it. anyone care to opine?

pour a brew on the concrete for another fallen brother....

don knotts is dead. whenever another don passes it hits me deep. cause you know that means there's one less of us, and we are indeed a dying breed already. when the don in question puts up 7 good years as mr. furley, we do like we do and pour another brew on the concrete.

san antone weather report....

my man trey does some thing where he blogs every day.. its usually some rumination about whether or not he is gay... either way, my man goes at it every day, relentlessly belting out fragments and elipsesses.......... like that.

you gotta admire his gumption; he is tenacious and rockin memphrica a la willis. . these two should not meet, for the betterment of humaity. either way, i'm getting after it, but instead of ruminating on whether or not trey is gay, i'm going to ruminate on the weather. also, i keep wanting to throw an 'h' into my spelling of rumination. rheumatoid arthritis has conditioned me thusly.

i;m in san antonio today on some bizness venture. regardless, it's warm and windy ,with a 60% chance of riverwalkin' .

shitty weather!

the weather here sucks.. why do i live in california? i'll stay out of it and leave it to tom waits:

---


It's more than rain that falls on our parade tonight
it's more than thunder it's more than thunder
it's more than a swindle this crooked card game
it's more than sad times it's more than sad times
none of our pockets are filled with gold
nobody's caught the boquet
there are no dead presidents we can fold
nothing is going our way
and it's more than goodbye I have to say to you
it's more than woe-be-gotten grey skies now
--

hug it out, bitch

venturing out of an SF stripclub the other day , we were shocked to see some metallica band member/douche at the venue. after the usual 'napster' pleasantries were thrown he approached me in some confusing way, to which i says 'you wanna hug it out? let's hug it out' ... and he says to me 'im not touching you dude.' which i though was wierd cause i always thought metallica was a gay metal band. so then he takes a picture with a female member of our party and we head out . im not sure what any of this means.

nothing is more disturbing than a gayish german cabbie....

truly, the subject line is disturbing enough... but alas, there is more.

last night took me to the marina .. drinks with friends and i figured i'd be safer cabbing from the mission. the mission to marina trek is only two miles long, but they might as well stamp your passport; shit brown streets give way to christmas lights and asian fusion cuisine up the ass. two miles, two different worlds.

regardless, i needed a cab. first, i thought i spotted one coming down valenicia, and i began waving my arm maniacally. my man didnt slow down so i got real close to the street and really wave my shit to get his attention. nothing. what a dick, im thinking as he passes me by. i look closer only to discover that he's a pizza delivery dude. i almost lost my shit, peered in and saw pizza man was also laughing his ass off. so we were cool, and i thought of a funny story to write... another time perhaps.

anyway, im still without a ride and getting a bit annoyed. finally, a yellow cab roared from 15th st way, pulled over and let me in.

right away, there were difficulties. 'no smoking!' cabby yells at me, in his teutonic ways. this is gonna be great... we pull off, head up valencia and roar up franklin street, the greatest northbound thoroughfare this side of lake shore drive.

somehow, about 5 minutes into this ride, Hansy looks out the window and calls someone a 'bitch ass nigga'. i'm like dude, you cant be saying that. and he's like ' nooo i was in the hhhip hhhhop nation... you must say nigga and not nigger there is a big difference!' ... basically, im looking around the cab for gas shafts at this point. these fuckers burnt me once. anyway, no gas, but this guy keeps going. 'do you know what a bitch ass nigga is'? 'nope'. 'a bitch ass nigga is a nigga who wont carry a piece and kill other niggas, like a bitch' ...

geary

sutter

bush

the streets weren't coming fast enough ... and im stugglin to not laugh, to not open the door.

' i used to be in the hip hop nation but it was too difficult!' he says to me. 'yes, ' i reply ,'sounds like a big commitment.' 'yes, i would not wax any niggas so i could not stay!'

california

broadway

green

finally a left on union and the subject changes to 'bitches' ... as we pull up to the spot he reminds me that 'bitches and hoes' aint shit ... as i give him my 10 spot , i am both relieved to get out of that car without incident, and regret that i never followed up on a recent goal -- to carry a tape recorder everywhere i go.. because honestly, i cant make shit up as good as you'll hear from a gayish german cabbie.

Protocol IV

check it:

In 1995 the United Nations adopted Protocol IV of the Geneva Convention that specifically banned the use of laser devices on the battlefield designed to cause permanent blindness.


what the FUCK ... how about this : Protocol V: specifically banning BULLETS from KILLING people.

jane, get me off this crazy thing called love.

i had the pleasure of being served by an angry hair mistress

what a joy it was today, to have my hair coifed by an angry girl in the castro! my first proper (> $10) haircut in years was not dissapointing to say the least... this girl worked me, constantly admonishing me not to move my head because it was fucking with her motions. so i got yelled at a lot, and i enjoyed it, because it is fun to be manhandled by a young lori petty-circa-point break type. beautiful blue eyes that almost drowned me though... i wish a set of circumstances presented itself where it would be prudent to jump out of an airplane with no parachute for you. apparently thats the only way to get through to you people.

NEWS FLASH...... an englishman offered me a ticket to the football match tommorrow between the 49ers and the Football Giants of New York.... i look forward to an afternoon of beers and nihilistic debauch.

i have been afflicted yet again!

those blasted parasites have found me again! actually, there is no proof of the parasitic element, but there is a romantic tinge to the thought that parasites find me a rather affable host. so here's to you! actually, this stomach flu isnt all that bad -- you get to sleep instead of work, and i seem to be losing weight. i highly recommend this to young hollywood starlets and rosie o'donnel.

this is my first blog entry, and i have to say, it's a bit strange writing a would be journal for the masses. in theory, this form should allow me to divulge my inner workings (and intestinal linings apparently) to a captive audience, but in reality i am feeling a bit shy. perhaps it was my strict catholic upbrining, or my puritanical tendencies. it's hard to decipher all of this at once.

San Luis Obispo Napkins

Back in 2004 me and S. Tanasse left work at 3pm to catch Calexico play in San Luis Obispo.

Looking back, I remember the slight look of disappointment in his eyes when I invited myself along. I could tell I would be an imposition, taking away from his one on one time with his german tapes. But I sensed that we could be long time pals and that a little bonding would go a long way. I was right! We rolled down to San Luis Obispo, caught the show, and woke up the following morning at like 500am to come back in time for a remarkably useless 9am meeting.

The show was incredible -- a small venue to see one of my favorite bands around. Neko Case opened and while she was pretty awesome and most indie rocker guys were creaming their jea

ns over her, i decided to retreat. i headed upstairs to the bar to write out some central coast musings. As is my style, I sipped a beer and attacked a cocktail napkin with some thoughts. I wrote one poem and one rant ... i came across this napkin recently and decided to post the contents here...

Happy New Year to everyone!

Soledad

It's nights like these,
Full bars in cool Central Coast towns.

It's nights like these,
Warmed by cut rate gin and a pitcher of Stout.

It's nights like these,
Alone at the bar, I look for you.

And it's on nights like these,
Distance and Time pour through me,
A freezing pint of ice water,
A cold draft of Soledad.

San Luis Obispo, July 13, 2004
---

Untitled.

SLO: Hipsters and low cut jean wearing honeys.
Tattooed small town girls who grew up barefoot on milk
cartons. Beach cruiser bicycles with built in foliage.


Small town incest is seeping through the Gucci pores
of this town. You can smell LA nearby and it smells
like rotten sunshine beaming through last week's
celebrity sightings. Junipero Serra could not have
seen this coming. He could not have imagined tattooed
tits pouring out of caramel halter tops. Were his
toils for naught? Hundreds of years of genocide, for
this? The Central Coast should be ashamed.

San Luis Obispo, July 13, 2004