Just When You Need Vonnegut...

At long last...back in the driver's seat.  I moved to Indonesia as a kind of semi-retirement to spend time travelling around Asia - a life-long dream.  Instead, I seem to get involved in all these projects and doing things like amassing small fortunes in property so that I don't get time for the original goal.  But then, I figure Ankor Wat and the Great Wall have been there for a long time, so they'll wait for me to get a little time off and some spare cash (at the same time).

Meantime, one of those side projects has been Radio Far Side, and the latest interview with Paul Craig Roberts has sparked a lot of interest.  It's been ccross-linked on several discussion boards and the information is getting a lot of folks talking, which was the whole point.  If you haven't had a chance to listen to it, I highly recommend clicking on on the archive or checking out the YouTube channel (links in the right-hand column).

So, a lot has happened.  Has anyone else noticed that when the PTB don't get their way, they do a sacrifice to the Dark Side to kick things into gear.  I refer, of course, to the latest mass killing in the States.  I've only looked at the headlines and have avoided reading the magical incantations that most of us call stories because I prefer to keep my view on the Big Picture.  Given past events, we can certainly assume that the 'official' story is comeplete rubbish and there are plenty of folks analyzing it.

Instead, I just look at the relationship of events.  A mass killing and the stock market runs to new highs, despite dire warnings from Bernanke et al.  O'Bammie announces that he is waiving the law forbidding arming terrorists, and in the same breath talks about new gun control laws at home, and no one seems to notice the complete disconnect between reality and happy talk.  The magic must be working.

Not to make light of the lost of life, of course.  Every man's death diminishes me.  But I reckon a little sarcasm injected into this so-called debate helps to mitigate the spell caused by such events.

I also noted a story up on Drudge about another footballer called Amukamara, who plays for the NY Giants.  Says he's the black Tebow, which might make sense to someone who follows American football.  I dont' have a clue, except to say that this Tebow feller is built up as some kind of super Christian, and the new guy is said to be a devote Catholic, virgin and tea-totaller (doesn't drink alcohol - except presumably when taking communion under both species).

As I pondered a little while back concerning the Miley Cyrus character, these two footballers smell like one of those set-ups to get people to buy into the hero-worship thing.  These guys are built up into good christian boys whose success is predicated on their faith.  Later, they will be taken down through some kind of moral flaw, which will cause deep despair among those who idolize them.  More of that Ole Black Majik stuff.

Best to idolize someone like Fatty Arbuckle, since he's dead and we already know about his scandals with underage girls and Coke bottles.  I figure it's hard to be disappointed that way.

And life goes on.  Hi-ho, as Vonnegut might say.

About now, we should all be waiting for the other shoe to drop in Syria.  The PTB didn't get their war the first time (or was it the seventh of eighth time?), so the likelihood of more 'terrorist' events occuring just skyrocketed.  If I were a betting man, I'd lay odds on it.  Either way, with O'Bammie waiving laws willy-nilly and arming known terrorists, the American people still have blood on their hands.  After all, it is the tax money stolen from productive folks (a dwindling club in the US) that is funding the ongoing slaughter there and elsewhere.

Perhaps we should hope that one day, the American masses will wake up and realize that if everyone stopped paying taxes, it would be hard to throw the entire country in jail, though to be realistic, they are trying to do just that.  But why fund your own demise, I always say.

Of course, I never cease to be amazed that anyone in the States still votes, since the counts are rigged and no matter who gets in, they immediately forget about the folks back home and start kow-towing to the corporate money spigots.  If no one voted, none of the 'representatives' could claim legitimacy, yet they'd still try to pass and enforce laws, which would clearly show the deprivation of the system.  Too much to ask, I suppose.

Hell, Hillary's still on the loose, when she should have been tried and convicted of treason for Bengazi.  No need to list the crimes of the Bush Clan or any of the other criminals running that country into the dirt.

It really is amazing what people will put up with in order to maintain the illusion that life is comfortable.  No one wants to upset the fruit cart as long as they think they are getting something valuable.  No one seems to notice that, among many other things, families can no longer amass wealth and pass it on to future generations, allowing people to slowly improve their lot in life.  In fact, the family itself has been destroyed so that there is no social cohesion amongst blood-relatives.

It's a sad sick world we live in and folks appear to have gotten so used the smell of gangrene that no one notices the rot and decay on the body politic. 

Hi-ho!

I wish Vonnegut was still around.  Maybe he could make sense of all this.  But then, he did warn us many times.

Another Seaside Enlightenment

Travelers have journeys and tourists have trips.  There's a reason why tourism sounds like an accident.

I have recently taken up a book that was probably one of the most influential in my life, though (until recently) I had only read it once in my sophomore year in high school.

The book is Another Roadside Attraction, by Tom Robbins.  I recently picked it up again after lo! these many long years and I have been amazed at how much of it I have assimilated into my life at far below the conscious level.

The reason it was so influential is that up until that point, books had been little more than school texts and linear stories, like Hardy Boys and Treasure Island.  I had never encountered a book that tore me lose from linear time and sprinkled the experience with a cast of completely off-hand characters.

It was a liberating experience.  It was a massive and profound experience.  It was a real learning experience. And it introduced me to a fictional character whose antics I wanted to emulate: Plucky Purcell.  I instantly recognized that the character was a traveler.

I followed up that book with yet another tour de force that also blew the standard model of life and art out the window.  That book was The Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.  In turn, that was followed by A Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein.  In the space of two months during my early high school matriculation, my world was ripped asunder and the die was cast for the wheres and hows of my life.

Reading those three books back-to-back tore down my then long-held beliefs (if a 16-year-old could be said to have long-held beliefs).  Monolithic institutions like religion and government and the standard model of the American Dream vanished in once fell swoop.

It was an exhilarating feeling being freed of these restrictions.  Once again, one of my English teachers had redesigned my Universe by doing nothing more than opening my mind to the world of possibilities, a place in which travelers find their life's purpose.

A traveler can not be said to live a life without fear.  That is not strictly true.  A traveler in fact seeks out experiences in which he or she must confront fear head on in mortal combat.  A traveler sees boundaries as beginnings rather than ends.  It is the equivalent of seeing "Here Thar Be Monsters" on a map and purposely heading for that exact spot to see for one's self what monsters look like, and more importantly, what they smell like, since with all our technology, we still can't bring that one key sense to a remote location.

I have since read many influential books: Don Quixote, Poetics, The Divine Comedy.  The titles pile up like so many dead soldiers on the field of combat - the blood of those authors poured out on pulp so that we subsequent travelers will know exactly what kind of monsters lurk there, and what they smell like.

It was that same year in high school that I discovered drama, not just as a way to meet chicks while attending an all-boy Catholic school (which was very important), but because it was a way to make books come alive.  the powerful combination of living books and books that live at a key moment in my intellectual development set in stone the path I would walk in my journey.

Books, and the language that unlocks them, are amazing experiences, and ones which most tourists will never fully appreciate.  They reach parts of our minds that TeeVee and movies never do, for those media only lull us to sleep while implanting code into our limbic systems.  Books, on the other hand, engage the reader in active combat.

After all, how many books have you read while asleep, versus how many movies and TeeVee shows have you slept through?  The answer should tell you all you need to know.

Had not my mother, my first English teacher, not spent considerable effort to entice me to read, I would not be at the keyboard this very minute while sitting in Jakarta chasing a wild hare.  Had not Mr. Z, my high school English teacher, not introduce me to a book like Another Roadside Attraction, I might well have ended up a tourist.

Alas, she did and he did and here I am.

When I travel, I rarely take photographs, and much to the perplexity of those who view them, I never take photos of people standing in front of things.  I hate that.  Instead, I take my rare photos of things I had never seen in tour books and I strive not to have any recognizable people in the foreground.

I have two photos of the Colosseum in Rome.  One is of the ceiling in one of the main vomitoria of a map of the city at that time.  The other is from the catacombs beneath the floor of the structure looking up at the stands.  The former is something few people take time to notice and which you will rarely find in a photo essay on the subject, and the latter is a view that only the wild animals, slaves and gladiators would have had and one that I paid a significant bribe to security to obtain.

Tourist photos have a certain element of "see? I was there!" to them.  I figure that if I took the photo, that is proof enough that I was there.  I have no interest in seeing some beaming faces in front of a landmark.

The other day, I was in the heart of Jakarta waiting for my ojek to pick me up.  Two families, obviously (painfully) Western were hoofing it down the sidewalk (such as they exist here): Father in the lead with his map and daypack, Mother trailing with the 2.1 obligatory kids in tow.  The Fathers were red-faced and tense, while the crew were obviously exasperated.

"Where y'all from?" I asked.

The Fathers looked like there were going to avoid any local interaction, as tourists usually do, but then thought better of it.

Father 1 said, "Kannst du Deutsche?"

"Yawol, ich kann sehr viel Deutsch!" I responded.

He visibly slumped as if a great weight had been lifted.

Turns out they had been trying to get to MONAS, which is kind of like the George Washington monument of Indonesia.  However, they were stymied by the fact that the park was surrounded by five lanes of unrelenting traffic and they were afraid to cross the street with kids in tow.

I said they should go to the crosswalk just ahead and be sure to use the "force field" gesture while crossing.  Once they crossed, they should go through the train station, over the tracks (ignore all the warning signs like everyone else) and go out through the small gate at the back and you'll be directly in front of the MONAS.

The Fathers looked unsure and the Mothers looked nonplussed.  Helpfully, I said, "Or you can take a taxi and have it let you down at the steps of the monument.  It will cost you about Rp.25,000 after they take you by the long route to get extra money."

They opted for the taxi route and I hailed one of the more trustworthy cabs in Jakarta.

Tourists.

Comfort and expediency rather than full-on combat.  Their kids were doomed to be TeeVee watchers.

Or maybe that American (Texian really) standing on the street in a Southeast Asian country who spoke fluent German and knew the fast and easy way to their destination might register.  Maybe having encountered a traveler they will want to know more.

Who knows?

Or maybe travelers and tourists are destined, not made.  But how, then, do you explain my awakening at the hands of great books and great writers?  Was it simply because I saw the warnings about monsters and decided to engage them head-on rather than shy away in fear?  Or was it because I have traveler in my genes?

Read Another Roadside Attraction and decide for yourself.  Perhaps add a couple of other great titles to it as backup.  Let me know whether you think travelers are born or made.  In my present state, it's hard to be dispassionate.

Send an email to luap.jkt at gmail dot com and put "Traveller" in the subject line if you think they are born, and "Tourist" in the subject line if you think they are made.  I'll reveal the results next week.

In the meantime, enjoy some good reading...