A Bowl of Stupid

Note: It’s funny how I get the most responses (I’m counting both here and privately) when I’m having a particularly bad time of things. That’s probably a good thing, as it means my friends and family, regardless of their location, are still looking out for my best interests. For that, I thank them. Truly. But try not to worry too much, as I stated in my last post (the one in question), I sometimes write simply to work things out in my own head, and they don’t necessarily reflect exactly what’s going on in my world.

In contrast to last week, which I spent both en route to and traveling around (Western) Samoa and where I had an overabundance of time and an under-abundance of electricity, I’m now located in my new home — American Samoa, where I’ve got computer access but lacking a bit on the time to write. I’ll try to remedy that (the time part, at least).

Given the challenges I went through to get here, I guess I should be happy to have even arrived — alive and in one piece (generally speaking).

By the time I first arrived on island, I hadn’t showered or slept for over 2.5 days, I was suffering from heat prostration, sun poisoning, 300-400 mosquito bites, fever, serious ‘digestive issues,’ dehydration, over-exhaustion, and (last but not least) a severely swollen and infected leg that I’d seriously mangled on the reef in Samoa after only 3 days in the water. In short, I was an absolute mess (which, for those of you who know me, is really saying something).

Even discounting all those issues, I still just HAD to get out of Western Samoa — simply speaking, in any of the various worldwide shitholes where I’ve stayed, never before in my life have I paid so much for so little (example, at the surf camp I stayed on the south coast of Upolu, I paid US$45/night to sleep in an open air bungalow with no mosquito net, with lard and crackers as ‘breakfast,’ no running water, and where the family who runs the place returned home at dark, leaving me, the only guest, alone to contend with the local stray dogs all night).

Never has an island that subsists almost entirely on tourist dollars been less tourist-friendly than that one. And never before have I seen such “nickel-and-diming” to death as I did on Upolu. It was sad, especially considering I’d heard the independent side was the nicer of the two Samoa’s.

In contrast, I was worried about coming (and living) on the American side, reading wicked things about the state of affairs here on Tutuila. But so far (and I emphasize, “so far”), Pago Pago reminds me of a typical beautifully preserved colonial island town, similar to something that one might find somewhere in the Caribbean. It is … simply beautiful here.

And as the days go on, and as I’ve healed from my ordeal on the other side, and as I learn more about the place, the people, the opportunities here, and as I’ve obtained my own car, and apartment, and sense of wholeness again — I like it more and more every day.

Sure, there are issues — it’s small, it’s preternaturally hot, it’s obscenely wet, the people are massive, the cars (trucks) are massive, the meal portions are massive, and it has taken many of the lesser qualities from both American and Samoan cultures. But it’s also in the process of integrating many of the better ones too — the Rule of Law applies (generally), the Public Library is modern and brimming with media, there’s fresh local tuna and fruits, there’s a variety of foods, there’s a growing diversity of people (Samoan, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Caucasian), there’s a sense of community, and there’s a positive, yet not unsightly, sense of pride in being American.

I haven’t even yet had the opportunity to do much of what I came here to do — hike, mountain bike, surf, swim, snorkel, SCUBA. But the scenery is absolutely gorgeous and I’m looking forward to seeing where the road here leads me …

I’m well aware that it’s still far too early to say, but I already feel a bit like Andy Dufresne – who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side.

Much as I did when I first arrived in Asia, I’ve started writing again freehand, often without any intent to publish here, but simply to clarify what’s going on upstairs. This is one of those posts. And while it is obviously melancholic (to say the least), take it with a grain of salt, and take it for what it is — simply a free-wheeling dictation of what was going on in my mind at one particular point during this latest “adventure.” Like most things, it may change with the scenery.

28 Feb 2010; Apia, (Western) Samoa
Right after this gnawing ache in my gut –- the result (I hope) of something I ate in Bangkok right before I left — the next feeling I’ve got is an overwhelming desire to break down a little out of sheer frustration.

It turns out my sister may not have been right –- at one point during the past couple years (I’ve forgotten exactly when), she relayed to me a little bit of bumper-sticker profundity which, at the time, I found especially appropriate to my recent life choices.

In trying to understand our extremely different takes on life, she saw a quote that put into perspective my life, which until then was probably fairly incomprehensible to her compared to her suburban domesticity –- she told me that “not all those who wander are lost.”

I thought it wonderfully simplistic, and yet at the same time, delightfully profound. My ego agreed with her, telling me that I obviously have all the answers and I’m just traveling to satiate my desire for adventure. I told myself that that was, of course, the main reason why I chose to leave the States and wander throughout Asia for the better part of the 21st century.

However, now I’m starting to recognize just how wrong she, and I, was -– I am lost. I’ve been lost for a very long time, I suppose. And it’s only been my over-inflated ego and well-honed ability to live in denial that’s kept that fact from me for so long.

When I was younger, I held the undying belief that I would be a complete person when, and only if, I met ‘the one’ person who would be able to complete me. For that reason, I spent most of my 20’s moving from one dysfunctional relationship to the next, hoping the next girl I met would be “the one.”

After having the pleasure of getting that myth thrown back in my face with alarming force several years ago, I abandoned my search for ‘the one,’ knowing that the dream is nothing but a myth.

Instead, and without even knowing it, I transferred my obsession with perfection and happiness from a person to a place — if only I could find “the place” I would finally be happy, or at least content.

So I left Miami, and I keep moving all around the world –- Costa Rica, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand — always in the hope that the next place I’d go would be “the place” for me. That it would all come together in one blinding shot of inspiration.

But it’s not been that easy. I’m starting to realized that is probably never is. Because no matter where I go, I’m always there –- and therefore, it’s always the same. And it’s always wrong.

Apparently, I’m still in a dysfunctional relationship, I’ve simply changed the unhealthy source of longing.

That aspect of my life is far too personal and complex to even begin discussing in earnest here. However, I will say that my search –- albeit unknowing – has left me weary. I am just so, so tired. I just want a place to call home. And that fatigue has led to frustration, which inevitably brings me to tears.

I want to go home. More to the point –- after so many years of moving about, I just want a home. It’s been so long since I’ve known exactly who I am, where I am, or where I will wind up even next week that I can barely tell the difference any more – one place looks just like another, only the weather and the languages change.

I’ve only just arrived, but already I sincerely doubt I’ll find what I am looking for here in Samoa. Shit, it’s a lush tropical paradise and yet I can hardly bring myself to leave my hot, sticky motel room. To me, it’s just another tropical preserve with people and customs to which I can’t fully relate. So really, what’s the point?

I am just so tired. And I just want to go home. If only I knew where that was …

(A photo from Cosmopolitan Magazine of newly elected Republican Scott Brown, who won the Massachusetts U.S. Senate seat held by the late Democrat Edward M. Kennedy for nearly half a century)

See, its not that the Democrats are playing checkers and the Republicans are playing chess. It’s that the Republicans are playing chess and the Democrats are in the nurse’s office because once again they glued their balls to their thighs.

-John Stewart, on the election of Republican Scott Brown and the resulting (probable) failure of the Democratically controlled White House and Congress to pass health care reform

A photo of Bin Laden from 1998 (left) was digitally altered using elements from an image of Gaspar Llamazares, a Spanish politician who has said he was shocked to find out the FBI had used his photo for a digitally-altered image showing how Osama Bin Laden might look. (click image above for full story)

Dear FBI Profilers, although I am of Middle Easern descent, please don’t “borrow” any of my Facebook and/or Flickr photos to use for a digitally-altered image showing how Osama Bin Laden might look. Thank you and good luck. xoxo

Your friend,
-Bowl

Last week, I posted a video lecture about ‘Sixth-Sense Technology’ on TED, the brainchild of a remarkable Indian inventor, Pranav Mistry. I caught shit from a bunch of people back in the States about my comments regarding the general decline in American education and innovation.

I really don’t mean to sound like I’m America-bashing. I really don’t. And I really can’t help it if people don’t like hearing the truth. Nor can I help it if I wind up sounding like a broken record (assuming anyone still knows what a ‘record’ is). But the facts are the facts. And it seems like every week, there’s another story about how some other country or part of the world is just kicking the shit out of America in the fields of economics, the sciences, and technology.

Admittedly, this time, it’s not India or China leading the charge. Rather, it’s the Swiss and French (which George Bush declared as irrelevant “Old Europe”). The NY Times/International Herald Tribune reported today, in an article entitled “Collider Sets Record, and Europe Takes U.S.’s Lead”:

Scientists said that the new Large Hadron Collider, a 17-mile loop underneath the Swiss-French border, had accelerated protons to energies of 1.2 trillion electron volts apiece and then crashed them together, eclipsing a record for collisions held by an American machine, the Tevatron, at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois.

This moment has been inevitable since fall 1993, when Congress canceled a behemoth project in Texas known as the Superconducting Supercollider, after estimated costs rose to $11 billion. … In the future, as the collider ramps up to seven trillion electron volts, the dateline for physics discoveries will be Geneva, not Batavia, Ill., the home of Fermilab.

Hey, don’t shoot the messenger. In fact, I’m sure you paranoid idiots nice folks don’t want to waste good ammunition on lil’ ol’ me. Wouldn’t you much rather maintain your ever-increasing stocks of ammunition for President Obama’s impending socialist revolution?

P.S. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.

The Indonesian Army on Saturday finally reached some of the areas worst hit by Wednesday’s earthquake, bringing two desperately needed tractors to unearth people and houses buried in landslides that swept away entire villages here. One of the tractors promptly broke down.

–New York Times, reporting on the extremely slow Indonesian response to the 7.6 magnitude earthquake that hit Sumatra last week (United Nations currently estimates the death toll at more than 1,000, with thousands more still missing).

I know, I’ve been slacking off with the blog lately. But between looking for work, and friends visiting me here on the island, and the surgery and various doctor visits, I haven’t had either the time or the inclination to write. Nor have I really done anything worth writing about lately — so, unless you freaks are just SO bored you want to read ‘ate, slept, walked on beach, changed bandage, slept, ate’, rest assured, you haven’t missed much.

But now that I’m back on my feet (and my surfboard), I’m starting to feel a bit more like myself. Which, in turn, means that I feel like bitching — in written form — again.

First off, in response to what I heard were less than satisfactory reviews to my posts concerning my trip to Hong Kong several months ago, I will say only this to anyone who felt that way: … how to put this politely? umm … fuck you?

I’ve never made any secrets about the fact that, in addition to documenting my travels over the past few years for both my own posterity and for my friends and family to keep track of my whereabouts, this blog is also an outlet for me to bitch and moan. When I do it about celebrities and politicians, I get all kinds of fan mail. But when I do it about friends and family, I get grief. But it’s just a freaking blog, people — let’s keep things in fucking perspective.

Let me say this again another way — I don’t know Fergie. She may be a lovely person for all I know. But that will never prevent me from comparing her to Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Simply because it’s out there.

Similarly, any one of you people reading who has ever been married, has ever had siblings, or has ever had parents (… wait for it) — you can all attest that you have, at some point or another, gotten irritated at them, wanted to yell at them, or simply wished to slap the living shit out of them. Yet, just because I may get irritated with my friends and family at any certain point in time does not take away from the fact that I love them.

And if you think you know what exactly I’m talking about in my posts, you’re wrong. You’ve got no fucking clue. You may think you do. Indeed, I TRY to get my readers to think a certain way, because it makes for a better read — often times in direct contradiction to my actual thought processes. But you’ve no idea what I’m actually thinking. Especially those of you who’ve never even met me in person.

So, if you want to read this dribble, so be it — feel free to. But you’re the one who clicked onto this website. You should know just what to expect by doing so.

[Me, post-operative -- with new nuclear power core]

I’m just not the hero type. Clearly. With this laundry list of character defects, all the mistakes I’ve made, largely public. –Tony Stark

So it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here.

To be honest, it’s due to several issues really — I’ve been traveling throughout Nusa Tenggara a bit, I’ve been spending some time with friends, most of what I have to say can just as easily be posted via Facebook, and finally, … well, I’ve been getting my chest opened up by doctors and stuff.

So, while I suffer no illusions that anyone still visits this blog on a regular basis — mostly due to my frequent bouts of inactivity while traveling the backwaters of Southeast Asia — I still feel the need to post a little bit about recent events, for posterity sakes if for nothing else.

As I mentioned previously, I’ve made an effort to hunker down in Indonesia for the summer in an attempt to preserve what’s left of my ever-dwindling supply of cash reserves, simply because it’s cheaper here than anywhere else in Asia (except perhaps India … and we all know how I feel about that shithole country).

So I’ve been alternating between here in Bali, and going out to Nusa Tenggara for surfing and to visit friends. I recently was out there surfing, and then took a side trip out to Flores for a little exploration. Although Flores was a bit tumultuous at times, I had a great time.

The down side was that I acquired a bit of a medical problem while there. I’ll explain…

Over the past several years, I’ve built up a lump on my breastbone from where I lay on my surfboard while surfing. It sometimes gets swollen when I surf too much, and it sometimes shrinks when I stay out of the water for a while. But it has, all in all, been steadily growing over the past couple years. In medical terms, it’s an unattached, mobile, subcutaneous, cyst-like … ‘thingy’ that, in itself, poses no harm.

However, for whatever reason, while I was in Flores, it got infected. Maybe an ingrown hair. Maybe just internal bacterium. Don’t know why. It just started to swell, and hurt. I’ve had similar issues both back in University and in Law School (altho on my leg and my lower back, respectively). So I knew what it was, and I knew I had to return to Bali to get it removed by a doctor before the infection spread.

The problem is that, although Bali is the closest place to get competent medical assistance, it’s also extremely expensive to do so, since the hospitals are used to catering to rich tourists with extensive travel insurance. Unfortunately, I am neither rich, nor do I have travel insurance.

So I spent a good 2 days going from hospital to hospital, clinic to clinic, doctor to doctor — spending about US$200.00 in the process on ‘consultation fees’ — just to find someone who would help me without getting financially raped in the process. I found out the hard way that, as a foreigner, this is much harder than it would first appear.

Indeed, at one point, I found myself negotiating for assistance with the surgeon at Kasih Ibu Hospital in Denpasar — like I was buying a car … or a mango.

Beforehand, I wasn’t aware that ‘standard of care’ was negotiable. Now I know better.

Regardless, I finally found a decent, relatively inexpensive, and ultimately competent surgeon at Prima Medika Hospital, also in Denpasar. He opened up a 3 cm hole in the middle of my chest, sucked up the infected material, cut out the scar tissue, and cauterized the cyst-walls. I’ve had the wound left open for 3 days now to let the whole thing continue to drain until the infection is gone.

I return tonite for the doctor to add the new nuclear power cells and stitch the whole thing back up, after which, I should be god to go.

And I’ll be able to fly and shit too, yo.

True. True.

As one would imagine, when I head out to the islands (with no electricity and no running water and such), I don’t keep up on the news as much as I might otherwise. Indeed, over the past couple years, I’ve realized that I can gather most of the news I need from the surf report.

Notwithstanding, I HAVE heard about this whole ‘global economic meltdown’ thingy that’s going on. And I heard from several sources — online, televised, written and otherwise — that there may be the stirrings of a genuine economic recovery starting back in the States.

But then I read this uplifting op-ed piece in today’s New York Times, from where the above picture was pilfered. The authors claim:

We are sympathetic to the extraordinary challenge the president faces, but if we’ve learned anything at all two years into the worst financial crisis of our lifetimes, it is that a capital-markets system this dependent on public confidence is a shockingly inadequate foundation upon which to rest our economy.

On the bright side, although one of the authors, Mr. Sandy Lewis, was convicted on federal charges of stock manipulation in 1989, he was pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2001 and had his lifetime trading ban overturned by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2006. As such, he can obviously lend his talents towards fixing the current situation.

Umm … perhaps ‘fixing’ wasn’t the bast choice of wording.

Regardless, I’m sure Prez Obama will think ‘outside the box’ to sort this whole mess out. Oh yeah, although he promised to change the whole paradigm in Washington, he IS still just a politician — and a Democrat, at that. Which explains why he ‘handed over his economic policy to worn-out Wall Street gorgons like Larry Summers and Bob Rubin.’

Oh, okay. Well then, there must still be a whole bunch of other people who can still straighten this mess out from the outside-in, right?

I mean, consider Goldman Sachs’ new adviser, Arthur Levitt Jr., the former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. He’s gonna be helpful.

Oh wait, what’s that you say? Levitt helped convince Bill Clinton to make two of the most important bad decisions that led to this financial crisis. So now he’s still around helping to liaise between Goldman Sachs and the government.

Oh … okay. Yeah, I see your point — we’re all still pretty fucked. Okay then, I’m going back to the islands and stick to reading the surf reports.

I’m in Dili, East Timor getting a new Indonesian tourist visa. After a 12 hour bus ride from Kupang to Dili, it looks like I’m gonna be here a few days. I waited at the Indo Embassy this morning for a couple hours, and now I need to wait another couple days before they issue the visa itself (which I’m told is fairly quick, all things considered).

There’s pretty much NOTHING here but UN and NGO personnel mucking up the place. But apparently, there’s some good diving spots in the area — which I plan on checking out if any places take me despite the fact I left my dive card back in Bali. We’ll see how it plays out.

Other than that, it really is kind of a bizzare little world here. It’s your typical 3d world shit-hole (excuse my Euro-centric judging), but the cost of everything is absolutely through the ROOF. Whereas I can get a pretty nice room in Bali (of all places) for about US$8 per nite, here in Dili, the cheapest I could find was for US$23 — and I’m sleeping in a converted shipping container (no joke — it’s actually kinda cool[ish]). It’s like being back in Hong Kong — only without the style, nightlife, and well … civilization.

On top of that, they’ve got the second biggest Jesus statute in the world here (let’s here it for the Portugese — the first biggest Jesus statue is in Brazil, ANOTHER former Portugese refugee camp).

It’s another one of those places with a really strange vibe going on — the locals still have a kinda ‘subservient mentality’ from the many years of Portuse and Indonesian abuses here, and from what I’ve heard, now the UN people have kinda continued with that tradition a bit.

It’s kinda sad to see almost everyone FROM here look away and down, instead of smiling and waving — or even trying to sell you stuff like they do everywhere else in Asia. It’s kinda sad.

I’m still getting my bearings, but I don’t think I’ll be here too long this time for it to make a deeper impression. I plan on heading back to Indo first thing after getting my visa on Wednesday — I don’t think I could afford to stay here much longer.

In honor of the newly baptized ‘Swine Flu’ pandemic emanating from the great State of Mexico (the 51st, I believe), I thought the following tune from one of the most unappreciated bands from the late 1980′s — Big Pig, may be appropriate.

The song is Breakaway, and for those of you under the age of 25, the video is from the opening credits to one of THE best movies of all time — 1989′s Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (ironically, the clip is from a Spanish dubbed version of the movie).

Enjoy … and keep the hell away from me, you infected bastards.

I pulled a muscle in my shoulder/neck really bad the other day surfing and it’s gotten to the point where I’ve resorted to taking muscle relaxers and Panadol in an attempt to get the muscle to stop spasming. So, needless to say, I don’t feel much like doing anything right now, let alone writing a post.

With that being said, I’m also getting bored just surfing the web, searching for a nice NGO gig, and laying around being high on muscle relaxers. So, in times like these — we compromise. Here’s a music video of Hallelujah The Hills’ 2007 single, Wave Goodbye To Massachusetts.

The video looks like a fan-authored version and kinda sucks, but the song is awesome.

Today epitomizes one of the many ways Asia is so different to the States.

Today — or rather, this evening — the electricity in the entire towns of Legion and Seminyak — two of the biggest tourist and/or expat locales here on Bali — lost electricity for most of the afternoon and evening. Indeed, it is now about 8:30 at night, I’m at at a coffee shop working off a generator, and the electricity is still not on back in my house.

Chances are, nobody in a position of power (no pun intended) has even been alerted yet to the fact the electricity is, in fact, not working. Granted, the electricity goes out here on a fairly regular basis, but only for 15-20 minutes at a time — most likely due to overloads in the power grid. But the last time something like this happened for an extended period of time (a power pole went down on my street), it took most of 1.5 days for anyone to even START working on repairing the problem (and another 2 days for the power to eventually return — by which time, I was already gone to Bangkok).

Yes, California is also now prone to ‘revolving power outages’. But the outpouring of righteous indignation and immediate demands for assistance I’ve witness there whenever THAT happens is absolutely ridiculous — even by California standards.

In contrast, here in Bali, nobody even seems to notice. Or care all that much … besides us Westerners. To wit, while the local family from whom I rent my villa took the outage as a call to make it an early evening, I simply had to get to a coffee shop and the internet, lest I be bored to death by the presence of candles and silence.

Sure, I like to play Asian, and I may raise my voice in defiance every once in a while, but as soon as the electricity goes down, my true colours come out. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get back to my iced late and the latest episode of The Daily Show — who knows if I’ll have my HBO back on when I get back home.

This Op-Ed Column in the New York Times, entitled “When Nature Calls”, which details the bizarre case of an air traveler who was refused use of a business-class lavatory on a Delta Air Lines flight, offers a morality tale for our age:

I can hear the snippy reply from the flight attendants, mostly middle-aged themselves, all of whom think the fun of flying disappeared some decades back — about the same time as their job security and sense of humor — and would rather be sipping mojitos in Sanibel than talking up seven-dollar “wraps.”

“You’ll have to wait, Sir. We’re doing the drinks and tiny pack of peanuts service.”

The intonation of that “Sir” will be familiar to many of you, a tone peculiar to American airline companies, one in which resentment, superiority, fear, contempt and impatience are coiled into a venomous parody of politeness — a three-letter expletive really — that stands the notion of service on its head and tells the whole dismal story of U.S. carriers in recent years.

My apologies to any waitresses … err, stewardesses … err, flight attendants who may be reading, but this type of shit (no pun intended) is why I don’t fly American-based airlines anymore. And why I hate flight attendants in general … except the ones on Air Asia — they do it old school, hiring only the hottest women regardless of their skill level.