A Bowl of Stupid

I’m still here in Sumatra – having a great time, which is good since I may wind up being STUCK here because …

I can’t get any of my fucking money!!!

Before I left, I arranged to get my funds out of a savings account I opened with AMTRUST DIRECT. Great, right?

Wrong!!! It’s been over a month and the motherfuckers STILL won’t give me my goddamn MONEY!!!!

With all my free time, I’m in the process of filing a formal complaint with the Office of Thrift Supervision against this bank and would love to use any other current complaints in showing the issues inherent with this bank.

The motto of this bank appears to be to keep the funds in tow at all costs. In other words: Keep away online account access from consumers, charge consumer’s service fees for anything they can and then make up an excuse as to the reason for it, or keep away interest payments from consumers or keep funds in tow with holds that are GENERATED by the bank themselves intentionally.

I am trying to compile information to determine if there is criminal neglect and or fraud going on with this bank. I have spoken to multiple people over at the bank including a supervisor and the answers were not satisfactory. I believe a formal inquiry into this bank needs to be made by the OTS for the ONLINE DIVISION.

So now I;m in the process of documenting all the MANY issues I’ve had with the bank — apparently I’m only one of legion — and I’ve gotta email the full complaint including my personal identifying information to consumer.complaint@ots.treas.gov.

For anyone else interested, you can also contact the OCC at:

Northeast Region
Consumer Affairs
Harborside Financial Center Plaza Five
Suite 1600
Jersey City, NJ 07311
(800) 253-2181
(201) 413-7541 (Fax)
(Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia)

Mutha-fuckas!!! How ya’ like me now?

Quickly, I’m still alive.

I’m in a small villiage outside the southern villiage of Krui, in Southern Sumatra, Indonesia. I flew from Bangkok to Singapore to Jakarta to Bandar Lumpung, and then a quick 5.5 hour jaunt in a ‘taxi’ around the sides of a couple volcanos.

But I’m here now. And there’s some nice surf … sorta.

There’s surf alright, but the afternoons have been dealing up some ‘brisk’ 20-30 knot winds — which kinda wrecks havok on the surf breaks.

Anyway, this is one of the few places in Indo that has some decent right hand breaks. However, due to the heavy winds (‘angin kuat’), I’m thinking of heading back over to Western Java next week. We’ll see how the weather unfolds.

I’m staying a great little place called ‘Family Loseman’ located in an idylic setting right on the beach about 30 minutes outside Krui — total cost for room and 3 square meals a day – apprx. US$12.50/nite. Nice!

I’ll tell you guys, everything they show in those stupid Corona commercials — that’s nothing compared to this type of confortable isolation. It’s not too shabby.

I’m working on my Bahasa Indonesian language skills, and things are generally fantastic. I’ll write more when and if I return to civilization. Hope everyone is still doing well, and I’ll keep up when I can.

Peace.

So … I’m back in Singapore, en route to my next surfing destination.

I left Bangkok yesterday morning and I’ve stopped over in Singapore to visit with a friend, pick up some long-lost supplies, and generally get my shit in order before heading back down to Indonesia for the next month.

Among such supplies is my camera’s USB cord, which I left here in November when I thought I’d be back in only a few weeks. Now, almost 5 months later, I’ve FINALLY been able to upload the pictures from my recent trips HERE (the Philippines), HERE (Sri Lanka), and HERE (India) (sorry, no pics from Bangkok — my camera went ‘tits up’ a few weeks ago).

Oh, and Manny? … TK?

Just in case both of your busy ‘work schedules’ keep you from browsing through all of those pics — there’s a picture showing the aftermath of my Sri Lankan sea urchin encounter HERE, and another showing the result of my motorbike accident from the Philippines HERE.

Enjoy ‘em, you sadistic fucks (but I mean that in a nice way).

Anyway, I’ve also been planning on swinging through Kuta, Bali on my way out towards ‘all points water‘ to pick up requisite surfing supplies (wax, ding repair kit, fins, etc.). Kuta ain’t my favorite place in the world, but unfortunately, it’s one of the few — if not the only — place in all of Southeast Asia where surfing supplies are available (ironically, Phuket also apparently has one lone surf shop, but I wasn’t going to risk a trip just to find they had nothing I need).

Apparently, however, the second coming of Christ is happening in Bali this month — because every single fucking flight from Singapore to Bali is booked for the next 10 days (except first class tickets — which we all know I don’t qualify for). This has left me just a BIT flustered, considering that last summer I was able to get a cheap flight to Bali almost instantly.

Luckily, I learned that I’m not as dumb as I thunk I is. Apparently I’ve either got a guardian garden gnome or had the foresight to leave myself a care package here in Singapore — replete with surf wax, an epoxy ding-repair kit, and even extra fins. Nice!

So … fuck you Bali, hello Sumatra! (Krui, southern Sumatra … to be precise).

I’ve heard some pretty good things about the place — including the fact that it’s not TOO crowded yet. Considering the number of surfers I saw in Indonesia last year, I’m not holding my breathe. But all in all, I’m pretty stoked about checking out the Sumatran mainland. If things go well, I may even head up to the Mentawai Islands and/or Nias while I’m down in the area. We’ll just see how it unfolds.

Rather than wasting US$800 on an unnecessary flight to Bali, I can take a flight from here to Jakarta (and then onward through Bandar Lampung) for only US$35.00-US$45.00. This stuff just confirms my thinking that, if you just don’t force it, sometimes these things just have a way of working themselves out.

I hope to pick up the plane tickets later today, and then I’ll be leaving over the weekend. I’ll keep writing whenever I find Internet connections, so keep in touch. Stay well and have a good month, everyone. Peace, out.

As everyone knows, in ranking of importance with other major issues of the day — the 5 year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the U.S. Presidential race, and the Chinese crackdown on Nepalese protesters — right up there is the seemingly ceaseless debate as to whether or not women are funny. (Yeah, I know, apparently I’ve got this alternating feminist/misogynistic theme going this week, but I leave for Indonesia in 2 days and I’m trying to get in all my reading under the wire).

If you’re not aware, Christopher Hitchens wrote an article on the subject last year, in the January 2007 issue of Vanity Fair magazine (cleverly entitled “Why Women Aren’t Funny”). I’ll give you 2 guesses to figure out his stance on the issue.

I’m not going to waste my time rehashing Hitchens’ extraordinarily long-winded attempt to avoid having sex for the rest of his adult life. However, if you’re interested in sacrificing an hour of your life you’ll never get back, the original article, as well as a decent compilation of some of the more vocal ‘responses’ can be found HERE.

Now, more than a year after Hitchens wrote that staggering work of dribble, Vanity Fair has seen fit to resurrect the whole sordid affair by publishing in its latest (April 2008) issue a rebuttal by writer Allessandra Stanley.

Like the original, this new article — sporting the less-than-convincing title: “Who Says Women Aren’t Funny?”) — is yet another piece of inspired comedic genius:

Dissecting the nature of women’s humor, or supposed lack thereof, is a joyless and increasingly moot subject, but it boils down to the point Virginia Woolf argued in her essay about Shakespeare’s sister in A Room of One’s Own, and it’s analogous to the case Larry Summers made so clumsily with regard to women in the sciences that it cost him his job as president of Harvard: namely, that society has different expectations for women. Summers sealed his fate by also suggesting that women’s innate aptitude for science and math might be weaker. The nature-versus-nurture argument also extends to humor. It’s a shame that Margaret Mead never made it to that tribe in Papua New Guinea where women tell the jokes, and men pretend to find them funny.

Virginia Wolfe? Margaret Meade? Papua New-Fucking Guinea?

Good grief, what in the name of everything holy is this broad even talking about?

I thought that articles about humour — especially one written by a woman arguing that women are funny — should at least be mildly amusing. That would be the reasonable approach, doncha’ think?

Apparently not, since the only things to be learned from either of these two articles are that: (1) neither Hitchens nor Stanley will be headlining at the Improv any time soon; (2) Vanity Fair pays its contributors by the number of words used, not coherency; and (3) reading ANYTHING in Vanity Fair with the word ‘funny’ in the title will make your eyes bleed.

What the hell is going on over at Vanity Fair, anyway? I mean, if they’re trying to piss off their readers, then by all means, I’m pretty sure there’s a used ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner they can pick up on the cheap. But if, on the other hand, VF is trying to publish some funny and engaging articles about contemporary pop culture … yeah, not so much.

The latest edition (March 2008) of Atlantic Monthly contains an altogether disconcerting article entitled “Marry Him!”, which can essentially be boiled down to the following excerpt:

At their core, many single women pose one of the most complicated, painful, and pervasive dilemmas they are forced to grapple with nowadays: Is it better to be alone, or to settle?

My advice is this: Settle!

That’s right. Don’t worry about passion or intense connection. Don’t nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling “Bravo!” in movie theaters. Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics. Because if you want to have the infrastructure in place to have a family, settling is the way to go. Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year.

No, I don’t think the author, Lori Gottlieb, is trying to be ‘ironical.’ And no, I don’t want to think too hard on the fact that much of her theory is based not on empirical data, but rather, an analysis of several American television shows — Friends, the Mary Tyler Moore Show, Will and Grace, and, of course, Sex And The City (‘SaTC’).

For purposes of this article, let’s just assume the premise that no in-depth discussion of the modern female condition would be complete without a critical analysis of SaTC. I wonder if the author is gonna have a conniption fit when she finds out that Carrie Bradshaw is getting married to “Mr. Perfect’ (i.e., ‘Mr. Big’) in the upcoming SaTC movie. (No, I haven’t seen the script or the trailer, but c’mon — it’s a movie about an unmarried 40-something 30-something horse woman geared towards attracting an audience of similarly situated women whom ALL look forward to their wedding day the same way most men look forward to a nice T-Bone steak — let’s just call it an educated guess.)

That said, based on these obviously well-reasoned theorems, the author claims that:

[Most women], like me, would rather feel alone in a marriage than actually be alone, because they, like me, realize that marriage ultimately isn’t about cosmic connection—it’s about how having a teammate, even if he’s not the love of your life, is better than not having one at all.

Good grief, I thought I was a disillusioned cynic, but this broad far surpasses me in that department. Truly, I don’t want to even think about the size and quantity of skeletons in this woman’s closet that would make her sink to this level of premeditated desperation. Really, I don’t.

I am, however, admittedly curious as to the general reaction by the female ranks to this article — one better suited to Marie Claire or Cosmopolitan magazines than to a purportedly respected journal such as the Atlantic.

Have things gotten so bad that the USA has devolved into nation full of desperate women willing to dismiss major character failings (oh, and lest we forget … halitosis) in favor of simply having a full-time companion about whom they can kvetch to their girlfriends? Because if the majority of American women feel, as the author of this article does, that it’s about time they too settled for something a little (or a lot) less than perfect … well, then I guess I should catch the next flight back to the States!

Is this really what ‘true love’ has been reduced to in the minds of contemporary success-oriented adult women:

So if you rarely see your husband — but he’s a decent guy who takes out the trash and sets up the baby gear, and he provides a second income that allows you to spend time with your child instead of working 60 hours a week to support a family on your own — how much does it matter whether the guy you marry is The One?

Aww honey, shush … you had me at ‘mundane.’

There’s an interesting subtext — a conundrum — underlying this whole ‘blogging’ business.

For me, blogging began as an attempt to capitalize on my interest in the Internet (read: ‘computer geek’) — through the use of online advertising and retail. That idea went the way of the dodo when I made the decision to abandon the capitalistic American existence for a few years, in favor of a more simplistic life in the tropics of Southeast Asia.

At that point, blogging essentially morphed into nothing more than an easy way to memorialize my trip — physically and emotionally — and maybe make available some information about the places I’m visiting, mainly for myself, my friends and family, and anyone else with an Internet connection and a shit-load of free time on their hands.

Unknowingly (and unintentionally), this blog has also become useful in another way. When meeting people abroad, rather than handling out my phone number, email address, or other typical contact information, it’s infinitely easier to write or tell people to look up my website.

In my case, I’m not sure if they feel it’s an accurate description of me (the most likely scenario) or what, but the name of this blog tends to stick in peoples heads like a dull butter knife.

This is obviously a good thing. It’s easily allowed me to maintain contact with people I’ve met from all around the globe (most of them Swedish, for some god-forsaken reason). However, it also allows a greater, albeit not complete, view of my persona to people who may not otherwise get an unfettered glimpse of my full persona until later on into a friendship.

It is for that reason more than any other that I’ve changed how I write this blog.

Before I revealed my true identity (yes, I am a fuckin’ superhero – so shaddap) and started using this site as my own ‘Universal Business Card’ (“Call me!”), I tended to write bitter and scathing posts about politics, pop culture, celebrities, and a number of other divisive issues.

But I’ve since tried to tone down the content of this blog, so as not to offend any of the people I’ve met, or may meet, either with different views than mine or otherwise infected by the ‘politically correctness’ dictating the terms of conversations with people from the States and Europe.

Indeed, I’ve already had one acquaintance ask me, upon reading this site, why I hated India (and Indians) so much. After pointing out the dirty hippy’s and the innumerable burning trash heaps, as well as the debilitating viral infection I picked up there, I found myself apologizing (and feeling guilty for appearing as yet another Eurocentric racist). The same goes for many other issues, as well — even music.

In trying to tone down my vacuously sardonic sense of humour (admittedly, a humour that quickly wears thin and most persons with an IQ greater than 70 don’t understand to begin with), I’ve wound up unintentionally offending, and being overly-apologetic towards, more people than I otherwise would, because I’ve unknowingly disregarded their political sensitivities — both online and in the real world.

Who knows, maybe I’ve just been hanging out with too many Ozzies. Whatever.

While talking the other night with a friend (coincidentally, yet another Swede — I swear, they’re everywhere), we got to the whole topic of maintaining a blog. Somewhere during the course of the conversation, I remembered how the word ‘blog’ is the shortened version of the term ‘web log’ — as in a personal log … about your personal ideas, experiences, and relations.

In that regard, unless they’re selling something (ahem), if someone feels comfortable enough to post all their personal shit online anyway, what’s the point in censoring material to possibly placate the sensibilities of people who won’t understand the verse, or the underlying motivations. Admittedly, we do not live in a vacuum, and it’s simply good manners not to knowingly offend people — ‘do unto others’ and all that.

I agree with that sentiment entirely, and I sincerely try to live my life in that manner. But there are limits — especially in the context of writing your personal thoughts vis a vis a semi-private forum on the Internet.

With that said, I will say this one more time for anyone paying attention — I’ve got some fucked up personal views, I live a different kind of life than most, and I have some brash and (often times unfunny) humour. I know I’m not a racist, a misogynist, or an evil vapid soul (most nobody is, really). But I will apologize up front if anything I say may come across as offensive or insensitive.

I’m writing this shit for me as much as for you. So I will write how, when, and about, whatever-the-fuck I want. Just as I really don’t know you, you really can’t know me simply by reading the stupid, random shit I may throw up on some website from time to time.

I know I’ve raised this issue before in the past, whenever I lose track of why I’m even writing this shit. But once again, it’s my fucking website, and I thought it was about time for another reminder.

P.S. This is the maid speaking.

Well now, I know it’s fairly irrelevant considering I’m presently between careers and I’m not lacking for free time and everything, but this just sucks.

I just wasted the last 2 hours of my life writing a nice, long detailed post about some of the areas of Bangkok of interest to anyone who ever wishes to make it off the backpacker-tourist infested Thanon Khao San (Khao San Road), or otherwise escape from Bangkok’s standard ‘tourist’ destinations.

Seriously, I spent all that time describing the Phyathai area of Bangkok where I’m currently living, and about the Sukhumvit area where most of the ‘falang’ ex-pats live, as well as some of the restaurants, bars, and coffeehouses in those and other areas I’ve been able to explore as an official ‘ex-pat’ resident.

But goddamn it if WordPress didn’t delete the shit before … no, not before, WHILE I was trying to save it.

So, for all of you who were honestly interested about getting around via the BTS line, and the unique Thai jazz scene up around Victory Monument, or finding a good local coffeehouse with free Wi-Fi, or about the best places for a private foot massage — y’all can just go lodge your complaints with the fuckers who designed this application.

Cuz I ain’t rewriting that shit out again without a court order … or at least another 1-2 pots of coffee.

Nota Bene: I struggled with publicly posting this long and somewhat contemplative entry because I don’t wish to convey to my friends, family, and/or other readers that I’m in any way depressed, because I’m not. To the contrary, I am settling in here in Bangkok quite nicely. However, I wrote this back in India to pass the time whilst confined to my hotel bed in the final throes of the Dengue Fever. I wasn’t feeling quite as ‘upbeat’ then (although I was, ironically, listening to the same U2 song as in my last post). So I’m posting it, confident others will understand, as I do, that context is everything.

I honestly don’t know where to begin, or where I’m going with, this post. I really don’t. I’m still a bit fevered still, so I guess I’ll just have to talk (or write) it through.

With so much time on my hands lately (see post re: Dengue Fever), after sifting through too many books and movies to even recall, I find myself now at a point where I can do nothing more than lay in bed, listen to my music, and think. It reminds me of how I used to pass the time when I was in high school.

Now, most of my thoughts rifle through memories of the people I’ve met, the places I’ve seen, and the things I’ve done throughout my adult life. For some reason, most of my thoughts begin by centralizing around old friends and past girlfriends.

I use them as ‘indicators’, since I immediately relate certain friends and girlfriends with different chapters of my life — my formative years, high school, college, law school, working in California, living and working in Miami, and — most recently — my travels abroad.

And then I get distracted, lost even, in recollections about the smaller subplots during those times that gave each of these larger chapters their own particular context and flavour — the different jobs, cities, friends, lovers, hobbies, movies, and music.

When I was younger, this ‘meditative recollection” used to be a truly enjoyable exercise. It gave me the opportunity to recall some remarkable things I had otherwise forgotten. However, as I’ve grown older, it’s become more and more difficult to keep track of the ever increasing number of chapters — with more and more characters and subplots lost to time. The difficultly lies not only in the loss of time, but in the accompanying melancholy that comes with the realization I can no longer fully recall people and things which at one time meant so much.

It is for this reason that, while I do not condone, I understand those people who, despite not properly ‘fitting’ with their friends, spouses, or loved ones, choose to maintain such limited connections simply because it allows such people a greater, more immediate connection with their past. Peripherally, it also helps to limit the number of ‘chapters’ in their life — possibly to a more manageable level. The less chapters, the less likelihood of remembering JUST how old you are, and JUST how far away those lost years are.

I could of course be wrong, I mean, what the hell do I know?

Fortunately or unfortunately, I am not one of those people. I’m much more demanding and restless. And while this allows me to meet a greater number of people and visit a wider range of places, there’s only so much time to maintain friendships … and there’s only a limited amount of space in my brain to remember all of those lost years and friends.

No, I’m not trying to recreate my youth. But yes, I do miss it. Very much so.

I miss my youthful exuberance. I miss knowing the better part of my life is yet to come — set out in front of me as a fateful mystery. I miss my old friends. I miss my old girlfriends (even the selfish bitchy ones … okay, maybe not them so much), I miss my old toys — the motorcycles, the cars, the surfboards, the snowboards. And I miss my old homes — the apartments, condos, and houses, and the cities, states, and countries. I miss them all.

And while I’m still glad I had the time to have experience all of those things and I still eagerly look towards the future, I simultaneously curse time for wrenching my past away from me — without my having even noticed.

So that’s what I’m doing now — I’m sitting here awake at 3 a.m. in a half-fevered stupor in some shithole in India, listening to U2′s “A Sort of Homecoming”, trying to think about all the great places I’m heading this summer, but instead lamenting over all of the friendships, places, and experiences I’ve lost to time.

I know I can’t return to those times. And I know I can’t recreate as they once existed the close friendships I had before everyone got married, and divorced, and had kids, and got re-married, and moved, and got new jobs, etc., etc. And yes, I am thankful for all of those glorious memories from my past.

But goddamn it, I really wish I could, just for a moment, go back 20 years to that time when I could hang out in my room listening to “An Unforgettable Fire” with my friends dreaming about everything still to come, laid out before us as a glorious mystery.

This just isn’t quite the same.

(A view down Phloen Chit from the Sukhumvit line BTS station)

One of the best things about traveling abroad with (relatively) no time limitation and (relatively) no agenda is the ability, and indeed, the tendency to randomly meet a larger range of people than you might otherwise by simply living in one place. Indeed, one of the reasons I initially decided to leave Miami was due to my ever-diminishing circle of friends — whether due to marriage, relocation, diverging interests, or whatever.

Since then, however, I have been alternatively blessed and cursed to meet some truly amazing people throughout the course of my travels. The blessed part of this is, of course, getting to meet such great people. I now have people I very much want to go visit all throughout the world — the UK, France, Australia, the Philippines, the Netherlands, Sweden, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and yes … even India (among others). The downside is that, due to the transitory nature of my life, I don’t get to spend much time with these folks which, to put it simply, really sucks.

It truly is one of the larger issues in my life right now — how to regularly deal with new ‘best friends’ whom, in all likelihood, will soon lose that ‘status’ whenever one, or all of us, move on (or goes home).

Another, and connected major, issue is the fact that I have no home. As I’ve mentioned previously, my friend who was so kindly putting me up in his extra room in Singapore has since ‘flew the koop’ — he’s moved back to Miami with his new fiance. Similarly, my other mate who was letting me crash on his couch in Singapore will, in all likelihood, be moving back to the States in the near future (plus, staying with him was never a long term option anyway; indeed, I haven’t even been back to Singapore since early last November).

However, another benefit of living with (relatively) no time constraints or agendas is the ability to simply ‘ride the crest’ of whatever wave may be passing by at any particular time — both literally and metaphorically.

Presently, due to a bizarre sequence of events I’m not at liberty to discuss, this ‘wave’ comes in the form of the ability for me to take over a friend’s lease here in Bangkok for 1-2 months. Initially, I thought twice about doing it since surf season in Indonesia is just about to pick up. However, after thinking on it for a bit, I thought it just a bit too coincidental that an opportunity like this would come up right now.

• Right now, when I’ve just met (and/or gotten to know better) some really great people here in Bangkok who have already taken me in as one of their own — just when I’ve been lamenting the transitory nature of my traveling friendships.
• Right now, when all I really wanted – needed – was a few weeks (at least) to relax and catch my breath between surf trips, like I would do in Singapore last year — just when I was contemplating quitting my travels en toto because I just wanted to sleep, with no pressure to stay, somewhere safe and comfortable for a little bit.
• Right now, when I was already looking from India and Sri Lanka towards Thailand as a place to take a deep breath and restore a sense of myself again after 4 months on the road.

Given these coincidences, it seemed the right thing to do, y’know?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still heading to Indonesia for a surf trip in a few weeks. But at least I’ve got a home to come back to — which, quite candidly, is a greater comfort than I ever thought it would be.

And no, it’s not perfect. I mean, I’ve been living in bamboo huts for the greater part of the past year, and Bangkok is a huge, modern, crowded, bustling city (very similar to NYC, in my opinion). And Bangkok is more expensive than India, Sri Lanka, or even the rest of Thailand (again, think NYC vs. rest of USA).

But it’s still relatively cheap (around US$250-300/mo. rent at a good location about 1/4 block from the Skytrain). And I have friends here I’m looking forward to spending time with. And the rail and bus lines are easy. And the food is both diverse and delicious. And English is spoken pretty much everywhere.

And most importantly, I have a place to call home for a month or two. Tonight, at last, I am coming home.

I was 19 years old when I got my first tattoo. It was 1990, I was a sophomore at Arizona State University, and I guess I thought it was about time to get a tattoo.

Recently, however, I haven’t been able to pinpoint just why I wanted, or how I even came to the decision to get the tattoo. Nor have I been able to recall exactly the thought processes that led me to pick that particular picture — the one directly above — to get permanently etched on my skin.

This image in question is of Calvin & Hobbs, the 2 title characters in a comic strip wildly popular in the 1980′s – 1990′s, written and illustrated by Bill Watterson. For those of you not familiar with Calvin and Hobbes, the comic followed the humorous antics of Calvin, an imaginative six-year old boy, and Hobbes, his energetic and sardonic, albeit stuffed, tiger (named after Thomas Hobbs).

Granted, my mom wasn’t thrilled to see the tattoo — especially when she realized it would not come off no matter how much soap I used. But when I got the tattoo, the comic strip was ubiquitous, well-known, and loved by both men and women. At the time, it was the best of both worlds for me — guys thought the tattoo was cool, while girls thought the tattoo was cute. It was great.

Unfortunately, times have changed.

My tattoo no longer held that same sway with my audience of late, thanks to a variety of factors — Bill Watterson’s retirement of the comic strip in the the mid-1990′s, the ravages of time and sun exposure to my skin, and the seemingly ceaseless efforts of American rednecks whose numbers are legion who chose THAT particular comic to decry their outrage over the quality of Ford trucks.

As such, for the past several years, the result has been a bluish blur on my left shoulder resembling something some people in some places vaguely recalled seeing at some time in the past. Moreover, this problem was exacerbated after I left the States. As a result, lately, all I seemed to hear was:

“Oh wow, is that an old tiger tattoo on your arm? What, were you in the French Foreign Legion or something?”

Uh, not so much … no.

So I’ve been searching for years for a ‘replacement’ tattoo to cover up ol’ Calvin & Hobbs. Either fortunately or unfortunately, I was never able to find something I liked enough to replace them, nor have I been in many places where getting a tattoo was a practical (or healthy) idea.

But eventually I designed my own cover-up tattoo, and I’m now in Bangkok — one of the premiere locales in the world to get ‘inked’. So I figured it was about time to finally ink it over up with the new design.

That’s what I did today. Actually, THIS is what I did today:

The design itself is larger than I otherwise would have gone with, but it was necessary to cover the original. And the photo isn’t the best — it doesn’t show some of the smaller details (there are some wave designs and cross-hatching that my camera can’t pick up), but all in all I’m pleased about how it came out.

Given all the issues with the old tattoo, I thought getting this new one would be a non-issue. And quite frankly, it was … until after it was gone. It was only when I saw the figures of Calvin and Hobbs slowly disappearing under a blanket of fresh black ink that I finally remembered the underlying reasons, and circumstances of, why and how I got that first tattoo.

I won’t bore you with those details — most of which are inane and irrelevant to everyone but myself and my former college roommate Stacey (who came with me and got his first tattoo at the same time). But I will say this much: I am a bit sorry to see it gone.

Although it was old and faded and much of its initial meaning lost to the ravages of time, every time I looked down at my left shoulder, I was unknowingly reminded of an earlier — and very happy — time of my life. I haven’t consciously thought about those college years for quite a while. Nor have I thought about the comic strip itself for a while.

My apologies, but I’m keeping my fond youthful memories to myself. I will, however, remind those of you who are interested of at least one of the reasons why I chose those particular comic strip characters to first decorate my skin.

So, to summarize, I quit my job and life in the States to go goof off traveling around the world for a few years, where I eventually go and cover up a tattoo of a comic strip poking fun at the same societal norms condemning goofing off from which I fled.

Well goddammit, if that ain’t irony, I don’t know what is.