One of these again.

So, I´m in Guatemala, just arrived today. These last two weeks have been a lot about not knowing what I´m doing. I took a bus to Oaxaca City alone and the first night there I met two Mexico City University students who were working on their thesis project: Rafael and I don´t remember the other one’s name, but he had a French accent when he spoke English and never looked at you when he spoke. The university was footing the bill for their expenses and so they took me out to eat for the first two days. They also taught me how to swear, the truth about Mexican men, and got me drunk. I got the flu after that and then drank half a bottle of cough syrup and took a 13 hour bus ride to San Cristobal de las Casas to meet up with Amber.

It was terribly cold there and it spit rain all day. However, we visited a Mayan village just outside of the city that was preparing for Day of the Dead. The village is extremely traditional and although they allow outsiders they are fairly hostile towards tourist snap-shots. I saw a Mayan girl spit at a woman taking a picture of the cemetery. Their traditional dress includes this fabric that cannot be described other than looking like a gorilla costume. The women wear skirts made of this material and the men wear giant sweaters made of it. It looks incredible. The church was amazing. The floors were covered in pine needles and rows of candles, the church walls were lined with glass cases containing porcelain-faced saints; totally spooky, they were draped in fabric and had multiple mirrors hanging around their necks. There was a ceremony taking place in which the individual cases where being opened and then flooded with incense
smoke. There was also an awful lot of ceremonial folding of cloths. My descriptions here are truly unacceptable, even to me. I´m sorry, it was amazing. At the cemetery all of the graves, which by appearances where very shallow, were covered in marigolds.

This, however, was the extent of our Day of the Dead festivities. As it turns out San Cristobal is not so much into the pomp and ceremony. Amber and I found this out a little too late as we emerged in skull-face to find that we were the only, I do mean this, the only people in the city to have painted their faces. We were well received tho, and as a result we made friends with a group of local hippies, one of which whose resemblance to Jack Sparrow seemed a little more than coincidence.

Today we traveled about 12 hours and are now in Antigua. Our plan was to head to Monterrico tomorrow, a beach with black sands, but it´s our running joke to be ill-informed about our surroundings. We arrived the day before election day. We have been advised that its best to not go out at all tomorrow, because as our hostel owner said, there is too much ¨laundry money¨ involved in this election, I´m guessing this means dirty money. We are in dirty money country now.

Okay, this is a P.S, the elections went off without a hitch. Although I guess Colom, the new president, promises to plunge the country into further disarray. I hear he owes too many favors. I am writing you from a beach in the far south of Guatemala, so far south that if I spat I´d hit a Salvadorian. The sands are black, it is true, and the surf is terrifying. At night it’s pitch black and the sand and waves are full of phosphorescent magik. If you kick the sand a spray of glowing blue dust comes out. There is also a folk band from Antigua here that serenades us while we swing in hammocks. We also met a bad bad father and son duo that never wear shirts or shoes, claimed to have moved here so they could drink and drive, run a hotel with a pool full of fiber optics, and tried to get us to do some special k with them. This place is slow and hot and no one does anything.

I don´t know when I´m coming home.

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Ever try to do the right thing? Terrible idea because the forces of fate are loathe to permit such acts of responsibility society puts forth as ideal standards. Time and time again the inclinations of would-be do-gooders result in failure, ridicule and winking, “should’ve known better” glances as the viral tales of defeat spread from amused bystanders to friends, family and co-workers.

My own life has been a steady trickle of avoiding situations which require a choice of right or wrong because the fear of retribution and the desire to act in accordance to values promulgated by church and state conspire with handshakes and bank transfers to tear me asunder. I hate the metro stops along the Embarcadero for the simple fact that they have fare boxes at either entry and standing on the platform suggests that the social contract has been signed– you have paid the entry fee and are waiting with evidence of this transaction for your civil chariot.

It may surprise you that I’m at all hesitant to pay for the bus. Okay, it doesn’t surprise the people who think of me as a pauper among misers nor the people who know of my coin jars but it might seem contrary to those who know my opinions on civic infrastructure and transportation: cities should not require the use of a car for the citizens to get to and from home and work and all points between. San Francisco has a far-reaching bus and trolly system which provides ample coverage but has never been able to manage this service in a timely, clean or safe manner. If the bus driver isn’t taking out a stop shelter or if the train isn’t dragging old Chinese women underneath then there’s a lunatic who has spent the past week marinating in their own shit yelling at their invisible friend or some kid with a gun in their backpack in the wrong part of town. All this after you waited for half an hour in the rain and get skipped by the first two busses which are packed closely followed by the third which is only going half the route.

So when you walk up to one of the Proof of Payment (POP) stops you’re subject to trying to ignore the fare cop who’s standing in your personal space shouting in a desperate attempt to raise their voice above your headphones– wearing dark sunglasses helps. But the cops are no where to be seen when you’re standing at the entry eyeing the fare boxes and so the casual observers will see only you paying for no damned reason and thinking you’re the fool for doing so. The only reason is fear of being caught but I always lost in the battle of fears and I always paced nervously around the stop near suffocation. For some reason I never had any problem smoking the whole time which is also liable for a ticket even after a maintenance worker warned me.

The odds are on your side, of course. How many fare cops can there be out there at any given time? There’s seven metro lines with any number of cars on the rails going two different directions. The underground stations are probably where most of the searches take place because tourists are easier to intimidate and not even the fare cops actually wanna ride MUNI. Hell, it’s not that long ago no one even gave a shit about the fare collection. Little kids would stare down bus drivers after running on the back door, bums would wave spent kleenex for fast passes and station attendants, if there was one, were usually too busy talking to someone to notice anyone hopping the stile. Shit, they didn’t even seem to notice anyone opening the wheelchair gate and its piercing alarm. But then they built these new stations out by State and the mall which was a joke. Except to Jay, the only person who was ever busted for fare evasion resulting in the second time he had to go to juvenile court. (more…)

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The tactile, aural and sensual pleasures of an imagined Europe–the “old” Europe, the “quaint” Europe–hearken back to a simpler time when a tennis match followed by a few cigarettes and some chocolate did not strike anybody as incongruous. Nor did the French-Algerian fiasco strike terribly many among France’s leadership as a bad idea.

I heard about Michael Moore’s Sicko and it made me think about the avarice and heartlessness of the pharmaceutical industry. But medicine’s ideals and its practitioners’ egos and financial interests historically run into conflict. Among the unseemly scientists the US welcomed in the aftermath of World War II is a large number of medical scientists (somehow “doctor” seems like the wrong term for someone who has performed vivisections on healthy humans) handpicked from the Enemy’s unprotected stock.

The data gleaned from Japanese and German biology enthusiasts, gleaned from the suffering of Chinese people and Jewish people has found applications and formed background information for our military institutions. Perhaps at some later date our rummaging around in this particularly filthy cookie jar will pay off in a way that gives us the moral high ground.

In the meantime, keep thinking about the crisp slacks, crystalline haircuts and non-ironic donning of large sunglasses that visually defines America, circa-first half of the cold war, for many people. Imagine the Pacific Northwest decades ago, already tampered with but pristine in comparison with today.

Washington–which shares a name and little else with that back-east cellar of serpents where money and death are allotted in accordance with popular will and influence–represents a convergence of natural beauty and people in big sunglasses. It was also the site of government sponsored radiation experiments carried out on an unwitting populace.

Don’t worry, I’m not in a militia. Here’s a link to a government Web site. Basically the government was dumping radiation out of planes onto populated areas, you know, to see what would happen. When Clinton took office, he didn’t have all that goddamn Reagan, Nixon, Bush, intelligence agency baggage and did a lot for improving the transparency of government, hence the existence of the site.

It would be nice to say, “Well, lesson learned, I’m glad this is all behind us.” Go ahead and click on the Search HREX Archives link found on the page noted above.

Proceed to have the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

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Tongue-tied with a sudden sharp ache in my chest as my faltering heart becomes overrun with an adrenal sneak-attack. The prospect, the very idea, of attempting communication– the simple art of opening my mouth and flooding the local atmosphere with my wit and humour– sends shock-waves through by body, one powerful surging tide of anxiety laying waste to vital organs and clumsy limbs alike. Just a little self-contained Nagasaki, babies bursting into flames created by the friction caused when I come into contact with the outside world.

An extreme example: another collision with a mystery wandering around the neighborhood where I find myself employed. For all intents and purposes she remains a fictional character, an empty husk in a demure coat flitting from vague instances of imagination to the busy streets of anonymous obstacles clogging my day like a drowned rat clogs a toilet when you try and flush the little bastard. However, as these non-interactions become more frequent the little monkey living in the back of my brain where the lizard became the man has begun to take a pair of pliers to various nodes and nodules responsible for a variety of impulses best left alone. Yet as the growing desire or compulsion to attempt some form of communication beyond awkward eye contact and reflexive looking away there also grows the more overwhelming physiological impact of a possible exchange.

But as I said this is an extreme example. Typically social interactions are fraught with nausea, faintness, a burning desire to leave and my hands and mouth cross-dressing. It’s a very rare occasion when I find myself at a party and a nearly extinct one where I leave feeling that the evening wasn’t yet another challenge to my right of existence. Against any available wall-space or tucked into some convenient corner a mental checklist is checked more thoroughly than any examination by Santa Claus or the CIA. I don’t know how to behave, how to approach anyone, how to effortlessly and naturally become part of a conversation, how to think, how to dress, how to talk and even if I did what the fuck am I gonna talk about? There’s a million and one rules of engagement in any social gathering and I will violate each and everyone until I’ve shamed the poor sods who invited me into leaving to make sure I get home okay.

Not that I need to go to parties and attempt to fit in, make nice, meet people or enjoy myself. This is an avoidable pitfall and nine times out of ten I’m smart enough or balanced enough to decline any well-intentioned invitation to leave the safety of my little hovel. Unfortunately, while life is full of parties, it’s also full of various obligations which require even more stringent application of communication skills and an ability to stand in the correct line with the correct paperwork and the correct questions and answers. I’ll be taking to the friendly skies soon and my excitement about this impending vacation is tempered by an acute fear of dealing with the airport, getting stressed out and anxious, then boarding a death-trap which will use the force of gravity against my stomach and fill my head with visions of corrupted fuselage breaking apart. I’ve been told there will have to be an exchange with the plastic smiles lurking behind the check-in counter instead of the animosity expressed by the automated tellers. I think the last time I checked-in through the counter one of my bags was x-rayed and my other bag and I were both stopped by security and humiliated publicly.

This would be more of a brick-wall in my life if my job was better paying and I found reason to, I dunno, check out pyramids somewhere. Trouble commences whenever I need to ask someone at a store where something might be– I know that it won’t exist until I ask some over-worked and under-paid future assistant manager for life who will drop everything they’re doing to take me right back to where I was looking and politely point out the neon lights and bells and whistles surrounding the product of choice. Hell, ask the guy down at one of my liquor stores how well I deal with paying the correct amount. Then there are times in your life where you have to enter some strange place with bad carpeting and worse lighting where employees have compulsory attire and perfect, white teeth. A faint memory of intentions long drugged, murdered and dismembered slowly began to haunt me after reading an article detailing the recent protests which briefly interrupted the shareholders’ meeting for Berkshire Hathaway. (more…)

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Tonight Frontline aired an episode about the man who blocked a short column of tanks during 1989′s Tiananmen Square massacre. It’s currently blowing my mind– maybe it’ll blow yours too.

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