Wanderlust

Big Problems With Big Z

2007-05-22T17:13:00.000-07:00

Before we get started: Ye be warned, this topic is exceedingly specific and probably of no interest to anyone unfamiliar with the acronym WARP. This article makes a whole bunch of assumptions about your, the reader's, knowledge regarding the 2007 baseball season and the recent woes of a certain moundsman for the Chicago Cubs. All 8 of you who are still interested, read on.

By now you've heard the news, Roger Clemens signed with the Yankees, Michael Vick is the Don King of dog fighting, the Spurs are dirty, Barry Bonds is trying to break some kind of record, and Brett Favre is angry. Oh yeah, and Carlos Zambrano is pitching really poorly. All these stories get plenty of pub, probably too much, but the last one intrigues me more than all of the others and I think is worthy of a closer look. Whereas those other topics have been exhausted in the extreme, and are not really about sports per se but much less interesting stuff, I promise to keep these ramblings (and ramblings they may be) on topic. Most importantly, I hope to offer you a new perspective on the Zambrano saga.

We'll open the floor with some questions. Is Carlos Zambrano's slow start just that - a slow start - or something far more serious and long-term? If the latter is the case, then how does a seemingly healthy pitcher so quickly go from among (fantasy) baseball's perennial elite to an average hurler or worse? We know that Dusty Baker's complete lack of discretion in regards to his pitching staff accelerated the ruination of 2 budding careers in Kerry Wood and Mark Prior, so is it such a stretch that Zambrano's 860IP under Baker might at some point come back to haunt his now just 25 year old right arm? And finally, as a brief postscript, might there be light at the end of this tunnel?

Let's start with that 1st question: Is Zambrano just off to a slow start? Maybe. The first and most common explanation for Big Z's early season problems is that he's still reeling from the aborted contract negotiations that he was pushing for in March. Recall that Zambrano will be a free-agent at season's end and that he spent the early part of Spring Training demanding the Cubs give him some kind of financial commitment going forward. The Cubs, however, were, at the time, frying bigger fish. In March, just as Zambrano was making all kinds of threats about holding out, and demanding trade talks, and other whiny, pro athlete stuff, the Tribune Co. announced that they would be selling the franchise by the end of 2007. Zambrano's pleas were suddenly overshadowed in the media and any leverage that he had was pulled right out from under him. Poor Carlos. Anyway, so the story goes, Carlos is still bitter about the whole episode and is letting it affect his game (this, at least, is the fodder of laughable newspaper rag and Jay Mariotti-type hacks). By this stunted logic, Zambrano is either a) trying too hard to prove he's worth his own asking price, over-throwing the ball or letting his emotions rule him or something (as if Carlos hasn't spent his entire career being an emotional time-bomb), or b) just going through the motions until the Cubs trade him, a-la Vince Carter at the tail end of his Raptors tenure. I think reasoning along these lines is lame because it completely ignores what is actually happening on the field and is too easy and obvious to be the whole story and in general not really worth the time of a proper rebuttal. Actually, the big fuss Zambrano made about his contract during Spring Training is relevant to this article, but not for psychological reasons. We'll come back to the issue later on.

If Carlos Zambrano's poor pitching is a topic you're familiar with, you may have also heard the refrain that Carlos is and has always been a slow-starter. Sports writers who take this line generally implore naysayers to 'just relax for now and if things don't improve by the middle of June then we can start to worry.' All it takes is a cursory glance at some career data to make the case. For instance, in April/May since 2003 (his first season as a full-timer) Big Z is 15-12 (44-20, otherwise) with a slightly inflated ERA, while recording 7.7K/9IP, a few tenths under his average during other months. But let's take a closer look. As ESPN's David Young points out, when you ignore Z's April 2006 (a really weird year for pitchers everywhere because of the WBC) and also properly weigh his team-dependent stats (ERA, W-L, BAA, most notably), Z's April/May's look almost identical to the numbers he puts up during the rest of the season. Even if you subscribe to the "just another slow-start theory", the first 2 months of 2007 have been off the charts bad for Carlos. There are other factors at play here besides cold weather and rusty limbs.

Now let's examine the possibility that Zambrano's early 2007 is not just a passing slump, but rather an expected downturn that may very well continue through the rest of this season and perhaps beyond. Pretty much every serious observer who's seen Carlos throw this year has made note of his wayward delivery and obviously flawed mechanics. At hardballtimes.com, Carlos Gomez (no, not the Mets up and coming speedster, but the retired major-league pitcher of zero fame), offers some pretty compelling video footage that compares Zambrano's 2005 delivery with his motion in 2007. Most notable is Big Z's arm slot, which is significantly lower now (nearly 10 degrees so) than in the past. This is huge. Among other things, the lowered release point causes his pitching arm to come way across his body after the release, making him really vulnerable to flying-open with his hips. This basically means that he doesn't "finish" a lot of his pitches. About 3 or 4 times per game this drop-down, fly-open motion is so exaggerated that it looks almost cartoonish. The effects of this awkward delivery are multifold.

The first and most conspicuous effect of this new arm angle is Zambrano's poor command. When Carlos opens his hips his left shoulder swings out toward first-base. While most pitchers use that off-shoulder to direct their momentum to the plate, literally pointing the shoulder at the catcher's glove, Carlos has to rely more on his pitching shoulder for accuracy while simultaneously fighting against the torque of his hips (as an approximate simulation try throwing with your feet spread horizontal while facing your target versus the way you were taught to throw). The video footage is pretty unequivocal in this regard, so how about the numbers? Admittedly, Z's "command" numbers are fairly innocuous. His walk totals are high, but we'll get to that in a minute. Z's pitch-counts, a huge indicator of command, have been normal. He's averaging about 17.5P/In at 3.9P/BF, right around his career percentages. Plus he's been around the strike zone. Carlos has thrown 1.5 strikes for every ball, an indifferent ratio. However there is one inconsistency among Z's numbers that jump out at me. Despite throwing over 60% of his total pitches for strikes, Carlos has managed first pitch strikes on just a hair over 40% of batter's faced (that's a 13% drop since 2005). And let's just agree that it need not be stated just how crucial is the difference between an 0-1 count and 1-0 count – okay, good. A lot of pitchers with great command hover around the 5strk/4b mark on purpose, taking advantage of early strikes to tempt batters to go out of the zone in deeper counts, but Carlos' failure to reach a higher number of 0-1 counts is a sure sign of inconsistency, even if overall ratios appear stable.

Now to get back to Zambrano's walk rate. Yes, Carlos has given up an inordinate amount of free-passes this year, a little over 1BB/2IP actually, but this shouldn't be a surprise. In terms of walking batters, Z has been significantly down-trending since late 2005. In 2006 Carlos walked 115 batters (a career high), nearly 30 more than he walked in 2005, in 9 less innings of work. Again, this spike in BB rate is especially disconcerting in light of his healthy strk/b ratio. To me this indicates that pitches that used to be swinging or called strikes are no longer missing opposing bats. It could also very well mean that Big Z is having less success getting batters to chase pitches that are out of the strike zone. Neither of these explanations bode well for Carlos. Is the new delivery the cause of Carlos' control issues, or has he invented this new delivery as an antidote to problems that existed beforehand? Again, we'll revisit this question.

Another major consequence of Zambrano's flailing delivery is what it's done to his sinker. Like most power-pitchers, Zambrano uses a combination of a hard slider and a "heavy" sinker to supplement his fastball. When it's tight, the slider is a devastating strikeout pitch and is occasionally used as an off-speed bid to right-handers. It's a great pitch. But over the long-haul it's been Z's sinker that's been the butter to his fastball's bread. When Z's mechanics are intact, particularly the arm slot (again, see the hardballtimes.com article), the sinker has later and steeper drop, more velocity, and no matter where it starts out seems to make a beeline for a righty's shoe-tops, biting inward just as the pitch exits the lawn. Squaring this pitch on the barrel is nearly impossible. Even when Big Z was walking a lot batters in 2006, he could count on the sinker for just as many groundballs (the great equalizer to high BB rates) and plenty of shattered wood to boot. As it is now, the lower release point puts a more pronounced backspin on the sinker. Backspin, as you may or may not be aware, increases draft and thereby mitigates gravity's pull on a moving object. In other words, Zambrano's sinker isn't sinking as much as it used to. This, the numbers definitely agree with. In 2005 Zambrano's GB/FB ratio was 1.64. In 2006 that number dropped to 1.23. So far in 2007, if you toss out an anomalous start on Apr. 23, that number is a very problematic 1.07. (Make sure to notice that this downtrend too is something that has roots in '06.)

But it's not just the sinker that looks different in 2007. Zambrano's 4-seamer, which the youngster has spent his career defying batters to hit, has also been revamped by the new low slinging delivery. Velocity is down from 94-96 mph range to 92-94. Like with the sinker, the increased spin on the fastball produces more backspin and a more pronounced late-lift (in reality, scientists will tell you, an optical illusion that really equates to less drop – whatever), and also way more horizontal break into right-handers. Zambrano's fastball (the remix) is not a strikeout pitch like its predecessor. As Gomez suggests in his article, perhaps this new fastball is a sign of maturity, that Zambrano is purposely allowing more balls to be put in play, sacrificing K's for pitch-count. But probably not, especially considering that the pitch's increased movement makes it harder to locate and accounts for more balls. And there's the answer to the question posed a few paragraphs back. This new delivery is not a correction to help Z with his control, quite the contrary. The new fastball, though a little slower, with that snakebite finish is as hard a pitch to command as any. This may also explain his difficulty finding the strike-zone on first pitches.

So, if this new delivery has no substantive benefits – is harder to control, results in fewer K's, causes more fly-balls, creates less velocity, etc. - and is apparent to even a modestly seasoned observer, why hasn't Zambrano and pitching coach Larry Rothschild done anything to change it. Furthermore, why did Carlos ever adopt this new delivery in the first place? Here is where Carlos Gomez's experience as an actual pitcher takes over. To paraphrase the article he wrote about Jon Papelbon, "A drop in arm-slot is one of the clearest indicators of a pitcher who is struggling with arm/shoulder soreness." This intuitively makes sense. Just lift your arm. Stress on your shoulder is directly proportional to the height of your elbow in relation to the shoulder blade. The lower the elbow, the less stress on the shoulder. Gomez draws an analogy to working out at the gym, "If you've ever done a shoulder workout with weights you know how hard it is to lift your arms afterward. Muscle soreness affects movement in the same as tissue soreness." And there's a second glitch in Zambrano's mechanics that indicate he's "protecting his shoulder". Watch in his '07 delivery how he's kind of hunched over, placing more body weight over his throwing shoulder, then taking longer to release out of this "hunch", and finally finishing with a sling of his elbow while leaving his shoulder behind. In short, Zambrano is using as little of his shoulder as possible to make each pitch. If this isn't all-together clear, at least note that it's really likely Big Z is suffering from some kind of shoulder ailment. And uh-oh if that's the case. Tommy John surgery makes elbow injuries a much less serious diagnosis, but shoulder injuries can be career death. The shoulder is much more complicated than the singular hinge of the elbow. One shoulder injury usually entails damage to a whole slew of muscles and any of several tissue structures. I'm not suggesting that Zambrano get filed away with the likes of Prior and Wood just yet, but don't think it's not possible.

And oh yeah, those contract negotiations at the beginning of Spring...hmmm. Over the last several seasons you may at one point or another have been jaw-dropped by the amount of money being made by free-agent pitchers. Very mediocre or unproven staffers like Gil Meche, A.J. Burnett, Barry Zito, and Jeff Weaver have cashed in on a pitcher's market that makes the dot.com era look like the Great Depression. At 25 years old and already considered among baseball's elite (assuming he's healthy), as a free-agent Zambrano could command upwards of $100 million on a 5+ year deal. Isn't it a bit odd that Zambrano was so eager to renew a deal with the Cubs or force a trade before getting to look at those kinds of offers? Are we to believe that Zambrano is such a loyal of a guy that he'd forgo a 9-figure deal so he could continue to pitch in the Friendly Confines? I'm gonna go out on a limb, and say no. There's something else going on here. Just connect the dots. As late as mid-2006 Zambrano started dealing with some serious shoulder problems. Overuse during the Dusty Baker years, though perhaps by other causes as well, put his young arm in a precarious position that he's been unable to deal with so far. His K's started to plummet while BB's went the other direction. Zambrano still finished 2006 strong, and it was by nearly every measure his best full-season (career highs in K's and wins). But he knew, as well as people who were watching close enough, that certain peripheral indicators were nearing the red (GB/FB and K/BB, in particular). Also, Zambrano was a first-hand witness to was the tragic demise of his two counterparts in Wood and Prior. I don't think it's such a stretch that as Spring Training was getting underway, and Zambrano was realizing that his shoulder was still less than 100% after resting in the off-season, Big Z felt a cold bony hand tapping his shoulder, turned to see the black cloak of baseball death and did his best to cash out while he still could.

Okay, one final caveat to this whole morbid eschatology, a healthy Carlos Zambrano is more than just a good pitcher, he's an extraordinary athlete, and all real athletes, unlike guys who just specialize in doing a few things really well, are usually much more adept at making the necessary adjustments when mechanics break down or certain physical skills wane (note how in just the last few years, athletic types like Tim Hudson, Kenny Rogers, Tom Glavine, and Jason Marquis have successfully reinvented their pitching styles). It wouldn't shock me if Zambrano slowly gets more comfortable with his new delivery, learns to better locate that fastball, further develops his change, and realizes that this new sinker can't be thrown in the strike zone. I don't think the K's will get back to the 1/IP range, but his BB rate could easily start to trend back to 2005 levels (his FB/GB ratio will probably stay pretty high as long as that arm-slot stays low). In the end, barring a major shoulder injury, Big Z could end up a good major-league pitcher, if not a great one. Then again, even if his arm does fail him, Big Z might think about honing that savage swing of his. In just 73 AB's in 2006, the switch-hitting Zambrano wacked 6 homers, drove in 11 runs, and even stole a base. In a 500 AB season that projects out to 40 HR's! His career BA is only .213 but for a guy who gets in the cage maybe once a month that's not so bad. In the end we may lose a very good and promising pitcher, but we also may have found the second coming of Smokey Joe Wood.

Official Racism

2007-05-02T15:07:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine sent me a link to the following article which concerns a study done on the supposed racial biases of NBA officials. Please read it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/02/sports/basketball/02refs.html
Interesting.

What do you think?

I mulled over this for a bit and decided to offer a few words of caution to anyone who's now eager to take this study as proof of racism. It's a rebuttal of sorts.

It sounds to me like the Wolfers-Price study is pretty sound. I have no doubt that the data is accurate and their results genuine. I'm not even entirely surprised by the findings, I just don't agree that these results necessarily indicate a racial prejudice. That is, I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest that black players get called for more fouls because black players do in fact commit more fouls. Before calling me a racist, at least hear me out. The most compelling aspect of the study to me (and why the NBA's counter-study means nothing) is that W.P. managed to adjust for potentially problematic variables - that centers are disproportionately white, veterans get more favorable calls than rookies, home v. road biases, influence of certain coaches, and finally, "player assertiveness". These variables are crucial as far as I'm concerned, and if I were to question this study at all this is exactly where I'd focus my energy.

The first question you have to ask is, the study claims to have accounted for all of these other factors, beyond race, which would (I agree) affect the way fouls are called, but what methods exactly were used to correct for these effects? In any kind of multivariable regression corrections like this are to some extent arbitrary, or at least less than exact. Since we're dealing with such a thin statistical margin those external adjustments have a major affect on the final analysis. So, how much of this is really just the numbers speaking for themselves? Another question to ask is, are the variables W.P. accounted for (even assuming corrections for these variables are accurate) enough, or are there other more subtle variables that may have been overlooked? How attuned to the pro-game does a researcher have to be to understand the particular scenario in which a bench player, for instance, might be put into a game with the specific intention of committing a foul? Or to be able to recognize a hard foul that's committed to disrupt a fast-break vs. a nickel-dimer hand check at the top of the key? Can we assume that an academic researcher understands those subtleties?

The most interesting possible oversight of the W.P. study to me revolves around the influx of white/European players into the NBA over the last 5 years (and it's unclear if European and Latin players are a distinct "race" for the purposes of this study). This influx has given rise, or occurred simultaneously to a major shift in the way basketball is played in the NBA. During the mid-90's (when this study began) the NBA game was lower scoring and by all accounts a more defensive one. Without having any data available to me, I would guess that more fouls were committed on average during these years than at any other time in the game's history. As it happens, the mid-90's also was the apex of black predomination in the NBA, all to the effect that there were more black players committing more fouls during this era. There then began a steady transformation. As the early 00's rolled on the NBA was more and more liberally opening its doors to white Europe. Concomitantly, after embarrassing losses in the Olympics and World Games, NBA teams like the Suns and Mavericks began adopting the faster, more free-flowing, and less physical style that's played in the international arena. Over the last couple of seasons this style has continued to take hold throughout the league. Also, as you know, the NBA has gone through a number of rule changes (the zone defensive most notably, and also the oversight of moving screens which a lot of tall white centers are the benefactors of) that have reduced the amount of fouls called in the NBA. And there's a few major implications here: the NBA goes from a foul-happy, grind-it-out league in the 90's that's almost entirely black, to a league that over the last 5 years is less physical, more fluid, and has seen an unprecedented proliferation of white players. Does the W.P. study acknowledge this very real and dramatic shift?

Lastly, what jumped out at me from the study was the last variable included in their calculus: "player assertiveness". The obvious: what is "player assertiveness"? How is it defined? How is it quantified? Not only is "player assertiveness" a quality that is exceedingly difficult (if even possible) to measure but also in my mind, for this study, the most significant variable of them all. To anyone being honest with himself there is a very recognizable difference between the way black players play basketball and the way white players do. There are, of course, exceptions on both sides but this study is no more concerned with exceptions than I am. The most glaring difference between white and black players is that black players are more physically imposing - stronger, faster, bigger. To me these characteristics don't necessarily translate into aggressiveness, or assertiveness (whatever the difference there), but do translate into presence, by which I mean that a stronger, faster, bigger athlete is more likely to be involved in more of the action than his slower, more diminutive counterpart. In the same way that a more athletic shortstop will attempt more groundballs, and therefore be prone to more errors, a more athletic basketball player will be involved in more defensive plays and more prone to committing fouls. I also think there is a very real argument that exists in examining where these players come from before they get to the NBA. Is Ron Artest's New York upbringing a coincidence or a predicate of his basketball persona? Does hip-hop culture's lionizing of thugishness and posturing influence the play of black players? It is no secret that the NBA (unofficially) embraces these credos and that its players mimic them with very inconspicuous gestures (look no further than Matt Barnes, as a pre-game ritual, patting down Stephen Jackson like a cop performing a weapons search on a suspected assailant). Is it such a stretch that this belligerent attitude manifests during play? Isn't it also true that white players (especially European ones) don't exhibit, at least to the same extent, the attitudes of that culture? And why wouldn't that be reflected in how "aggressively" or "assertively" a player plays defense.

Obviously there is a lot to be teased out of any analysis of this kind. The W.P. study claims to have teased out potential complicating issues to the best of their statistical ability (one that galactically exceeds mine) but I wonder just how far they went, and even if they accounted for everything, the method by which they did it. Ultimately, I tend to think that this study confirms not what I would call "subconscious racism", as did the article, but instead exposes very real and intractable racial differences (maybe more accurately just cultural differences that for now take hold along racial lines). Maybe black players do commit more fouls. Unfortunately anyone who suggested as much publicly would be harangued. "That's just racist, man, that's ignorant." Good thing we can't even talk about it, heaven forbid we might learn something.

St. Louis, to Zona, to San Diego

2007-03-25T13:04:00.000-07:00

For people who haven't given up on this blog yet...

I'm back in my old stomping grounds of Pacific Beach, San Diego. But before regaling you with stories of epic Mario Tennis battles, dive bars, pick-up basketball games at the PB Rec center, drunk sorority girls sashaying down Garnett Avenue in not a lot of clothes, and spending my days (and nights) on one of the most comfortable couches ever, let's take a look at some of what's happened since leaving St. Louis.

First, Spring Training in Arizona was awesome. I got to Tempe on a Wednesday morning, a full day before the rest of my friends were to arrive. Rather than pay $50 for a lonesome night at a Motel 6, I decided to take my chances on a stranger's couch. There's a website called Couchsurfer.com which I became acquainted with after my sister-in-law told me about it way back in September. The premise is straightforward: travelers are offered other couchsurfer's couches, or spare beds, or whatever, and in return those travelers offer theirs when they get home. I know at first glance it sounds like something on which Chris Hanson and the Catch A Predator crew might do an expose, but it's actually quite legitimate and absolutely great for all sorts of reasons. The obvious draw is that it's free, and for the young, largely unemployed, and if not unemployed then certainly underfunded set, the budgeting advantages are self-evident. It's also a great way to become acclimated to a new place. Traveling can be overwhelming, particularly if done alone, and even more so if done alone and in a foreign country. What better way to explore a new city and learn a new culture than from someone who already lives there? While Arizona isn't exactly foreign to me, I was glad to have a willing companion to pick me up from the airport, take me to dinner (at a restaurant called Chino Bandidos, a Mexican-Chinese fusion joint where you can grind on some very tasty dishes like emerald chicken enchiladas or Kung Pao beef burritos), and introduce me to loads of very interesting people, all citizens of the couchsurfing community. And while I was admittedly skeptical about the whole thing, all those apprehensions were immediately relieved upon meeting my gracious host, a kinder person I have yet to meet. Cooler still, the same night I slept on a surprisingly comfortable blowup mattress in a very fine apartment in south Tempe my host also happened to be accommodating a young couple from Brussels, Helene and Steffon Vandenberghe. Apparently Steffon is a well-regarded Belgian musician. So while not only staying a night in Arizona for free, I also got to rub shoulders with foreign celebrity. Which was fun.

On Thursday night my friends from San Diego arrived and things got a bit lairy. At the risk of sounding like all I ever do is travel to different places and drink myself silly (only partly true), I have to admit that the Phoenix area is a partying man's oasis. We ended up staying in North Tempe, just south of Scottsdale, which turned out to be a prime outpost for feeding the old drinking habit. Head south and your run into Mill Ave., the heart of Sun Devil country. Head north and you'll find the more glitzy confines of Scottsdale, which seemed to me like a mix of San Diego's Gaslamp district and Las Vegas. I've never really been to downtown LA but I imagine it looks a lot like Scottsdale. We spent all of our three nights running around these places like a bunch of dipsomaniacs, and I regret to say that I remember very little of it – except 2 things. 1) I heard one of the funniest pick-up lines ever. My friend took a liking to a very well, though obviously artificially proportioned waitress late on Saturday night. In a desperate attempt to make the night a bit more memorable he asked her for her number and she flatly rejected him, explaining that she was moving the next day or something, which apparently entailed her not having a phone. Really, she could not have been less interested. My friend, propelled by inebriated gusto and the obvious fact that no matter how badly he got embarrassed it was okay because he would never see this girl again, called the waitress over to our table about 10 minutes after his first rejection and unleashed this gem, "Forget about your phone number, how 'bout I give you the best 15 seconds of your life?" Not only was every human being in earshot completely gut-busted, after a moment in which the waitress just stood there silently, completely domed, trying to figure what just transpired, she actually gives my friend her phone number then proceeds to call him at 3am that very evening. Too bad my friend was passed out by then, lying in our room getting Sharpie drawn all over his body. Good times. 2) This may not be the place to rear this conversation, but something came up while we were in Scottsdale that needs clarification. While out at the bars one night we walk by two really big black guys going into some club, who had cornrows, were wearing all sorts of expensive jewelry, and had just stepped out of some candy painted suped up El Dorado. While I had no idea who they were I half-jokingly mentioned that they must be Anquan Boldin and Larry Fitzgerald (wide receivers for the Arizona Cardinals), and if not those guys then two other NFL players, or anyway, based on their size, obviously professional athletes. An argument ensued in which I was called racist and ignorant. But those guys have to play football, right? I'm not saying that they're athletes just because they're rich and they're black, of course there's plenty of rich black guys who aren't celebrities (that stereotype is sooooo played), it's the cornrows that give it away. You're just not going to see Larry Fitzgerald Esquire walking around with his briefcase while rocking some rows. If you're rich enough to be wearing platinum chains, you're a huge black guy going into a club called Mist or Crystalz or something, you're rocking braids, and you're not dressed up for Halloween, the chances are that you play professional sports. How is that racist?

Oh woops, I forgot that it's uncouth to speak candidly about race. Try and forget that last paragraph if you're offended.

The Spring Training games themselves were also handfuls of fun. We went to a game each of the days we were there and saw 6 different teams. The best part about Spring Training is that the atmosphere is incomparably more intimate than watching regular season baseball. At those 50,000 seat stadiums you can consider your seats good if you can read the names on the back of the player's jerseys. At Spring Training you could be standing behind one of the owners while you're in line for a hotdog. You can walk up to the bullpen and watch pitchers warm-up from just a few feet away, close enough to see the different spin on a 2-seam fastball and a slider. Usually by the 3rd inning there's vacant seats right up in the first few rows and the ushers couldn't care less if you sit down in them without a ticket. And most importantly, you're close enough to the action that you can heckle the shit out of the players. For most games it's no problem to get cheap tickets for the right or left field bleachers. Usually we would be sitting out there, 5 or 6 of us, in mostly empty rows of seats, drinking beers with our shirts off, and making fun of guys who have 5 more days before they're optioned to their minor league clubs in Tulsa or El Paso. "Hey 86, I don't even know what to say to you, you're number is 86." Or, "92, nice 14-hop to the cutoff man. If you can get that relay throw down to like 8 or 10 hops maybe they'll give you a number in the 60's next year." You know, really funny stuff like that. This year our prime target heading into the games was the Brewer's newly acquired leftfielder, Kevin Mench, a player who we skewered 2 years ago while he was on the Rangers. Mench, as baseball fans know, has one of, if not THE biggest head in human history. That thing is it's own county. One of my friend's was worried that he wouldn't be able to work on his tan during the game because Mench's head would cause a solar eclipse. Unfortunately Mench must have found out that we were coming to their game against the Cubs as he sat that one out. Our attentions quickly turned to the Angel's embattled free agent, Gary Matthews Jr., who has been under heavy scrutiny since it was discovered that he was a major client for a company that distributes HGH and other banned performance enhancing drugs. After playing a few innings in center, just far enough from our seats to be properly heckled, Matthews had to exit the stadium from the tunnel in right field. Stopping to sign autographs was the worst decision he ever made. As soon as G-Matt got within earshot we were out of our seats and in that guy's dome. "Hey Gary, my 40 time is a little down, you think you could loan me some of those PEDS." "It's cool Gary, Jose Canseco started taking HGH at about your age too, and look how good the 2nd half of his career worked out." "So how much you benching these days?" Rereading those lines now, it doesn't really seem all that funny, but try and appreciate the improvisation. We were all cracking up at the time.

As a quick aside to the Spring Training games, two players really made an impression on me as potential breakout candidates for the 2007season – Bill Hall and Aramis Ramirez. Bill Hall plays centerfield for the Brewers and quietly hit 35 homers for them while playing shortstop last season. For fantasy leaguers, Hall still has SS eligibility in Yahoo formats and is a very solid middle round draft pick. At the game we saw he looked like a young Griffey Jr. out there in centerfield and swung a Jr.-like stick as well. Ramirez, the Cubs 3rd baseman, is a perennial 30-100 guy who, with the addition of Soriano and a healthy Derek Lee, is primed for a HUGE year. I suggest drafting both of those guys in your fantasy leagues.

_________________

I've now been in San Diego for almost 2 weeks and I am happy to say that things here are just as I left them. The weather is still bright and cool. The pace of things is languid. My friends and I spend our free time playing video games, old-man softball, and arguing about sports. The other day I played golf for the first time in about a year and I still can't putt worth a damn. We played wiffle-ball down at the beach yesterday, where Gilbert and I absolutely owned Shields and Keel, then barbequed some steaks for dinner and watched the first set of sweet-16 games. On Wednesday I saw a double-feature at the cineplex in Clairemont, Zodiac and 300. Both enjoyable. I've been playing basketball almost everyday over at the PB rec center, just a short walk from the apartment where I stay. Dan the Bum still sits out on that park bench everyday, high as kite, watching the games and yelling obscenities at no one in particular. Dan only becomes a problem when, as happened yesterday, he starts throwing his shoes onto the court. Lenny, at least 60 years old and as I understand it recently recovered from bypass surgery, is still out there everyday also, hobbling around in his sweat pants and backwards baseball cap, not yet ready to hang up the sneakers. My hope is that he never will. I was disappointed to see Terry playing out there last week. He used to be a star shooting-guard at USD, playing in a few NCAA tournaments, good enough to play professionally but still unwilling to take his chances at a career overseas in a place like Turkey or Greece. He talks about it whimsically and often, but after all of the talking and daydreaming he is still stuck in San Diego. To consider Terry's potential and the opportunities available to him is frustrating for me because I often wish I could do the very thing that he seems unwilling to even attempt. Perhaps the leisurely atmosphere of rec-league ball suits him just fine.

As you might imagine, my time in San Diego has been unbelievably relaxing. I have not once felt the shutter of stress, or compelled to rush, or the need to consider anything beyond the moment I am in. Tomorrow is a needless concept here. I will be in San Diego for some amount of time and then I will leave. I still plan to visit LA soon, and I will be back in the Bay at some point as well. But when exactly, I can't say. Next week a friend is coming from San Francisco and I will stay at least until then. I hope everyone is doing well. As always, my regards.

Another Manic Monday

2007-03-05T22:44:00.000-08:00

This late Monday night malaise has struck suddenly and out of nowhere. It was day and then the sun disappeared while I showered and vacuumed my room. The sun promised so much today, so bright and long arcing, so sure of its glory, and then tip-toes away like a thief, or like a beautiful thing leaving too early from a bar, before there is time, even, to buy it a drink. The darkness went from purple to black, but I didn't notice that either. I don't much feel like going out; it's past the hour of such decisions anyway. I am alone of course. The television is absolutely unwatchable. It is somehow both excruciatingly painful and all-together numbing. Mind rape. On the counter there is a bowl of undercooked spaghetti undergoing an unidentity crisis, hot supper or forgotten leftovers. The spaghetti must feel like those poor humans born on the cusp of two zodiac signs, at war with itself forever. The spaghetti smells likes nothing. The apartment is stale and quiet, not even wind enough to make the windowsills whistle, or a loud movie from the downstairs neighbors to defeat the refrigerator's intermittent din. Since turning off the television I've just been sitting here, allowing my thoughts to run in circles, unleashed like Labradors at the park. Which is okay. Calm. But the contents of my mind, having spilled out my ears and onto the rug, have left the old eggshell a bit hollowed out. And I'm left to scraping at the musk covered husk.

On account of the cerebral void, eventually I am vaulted involuntarily into a conscious world I'd rather avoid. Somewhere beneath the flotsam of daily minutia, which for now has been hacked away with this mixed metaphor like a slag hammer, is a deep and frigid ocean of liquid thought. The mind swells with such waters, you know? And they so often remain unexplored, grave and alien creatures, drastic landscapes, unbearable pressure, sheer darkness. Who of you have traveled such places before? Hands. Surely we all go there from time to time, no? On our own accord, at random or pensive times as now, or taken there by the hand of recreational drugs or by dreams (although I'd say the oneiric experience is a whole nother pancake entirely – whatever). In any case, come with me on a dive down here for a spell and laugh, as I do, at the absurdity of it.

At first sight it appears that everything at these depths is colored in a profound light (or non-light as it were). Things begin to get heavy, on account of our depth and the corresponding fluid-pressure, and as the descent continues the surroundings turn poignant, then depressing. An anglerfish picks a banjo and sings a bluegrass ballad about his long bygone belle from Birmingham. Existential eels quote Kierkegaard to nihilistic needlefish. Pressure mounting still. It is like being buried beneath wheelbarrow loads of sentiment sediment. Cliches drift in these parts like parasitic microbes. See that one there? Who cares anyway, it's just dust in the wind. Cosmic metaphors swim by with sharp teeth and chromatic scales. Universal truths tread water amongst remembered dreams like clown fish amongst anemones. Irony rips across the far above surface on a Sea-Doo, too far from here to be seen. This is where Buddhists come to meditate and new-agers come to experiment with alternative medicines. I will suffocate down here if this lasts much longer.

It's midnight already? I'm going to bed.

One More Thing, Actually Two

2007-02-22T13:32:00.000-08:00

In my recent bout with near-boredom I've been toying with some alternative blog templates. The page might look different from what your used to but it's the same content. I think I'll stick with this look for now, but it will probably be changing in the near future.

Also, on the right side column, under the "About Me" information, you can find a links section. In my Google work I come across quite a few interesting websites. I've started to compile some of my favorites, along with with other notable pages that I otherwise like or think are worth taking a look at. Go ahead and explore. Even if there's a lull in the posts, I'll probably be adding links on a daily basis.

Not Bored, But Getting There

2007-02-22T13:15:00.000-08:00

I've received several e-mails asking for an update on my brother's condition. In short, he's fine. Not 100%, but just yesterday we were able to explore downtown St. Louis and even throw the pigskin around in the park for a few hours. It's next to a sure thing that he'll be back working part-time at the hospital by March 1st. The color in his skin is back. He's able to do basic chores and has even been able to drive himself around for short periods. His recovery has been as smooth as we could ask for.

The reason I haven't written anything for a few weeks is because there has been nothing to write about it. My brother's health is an exhausted topic at this point, don't you think? And what else is there? Jake and I sit on the couch virtually all day. I do my Google stuff, and Jake watches TV and surfs the net. (Our channel of choice has been the Food Network. It's seems to me a fair compromise between ESPN and whatever channel my brother would choose if I wasn't here. But it's bland. Though never grating or altogether unwatchable, the Food Network is also never that intriguing either. Right now we're watching the 1986 classic, "Lucas" on WEtv. Until now I never realized what kind of star-power this movie has – aside form Corey Haim of course, there's Jeremy Piven as the bullying meathead, Charlie Sheen as the unlikely nice guy, a very nerdy Winona Ryder, and the hot chick from Goonies. What a cast!) As the weather has allowed, we've spent a few days strolling through St. Louis's Forest Park, an enormous and well-designed public space that actually trumps New York's Central Park in sheer size. The park has a few museums, a zoo, tennis courts, 3 9-hole golf courses, an ice-skating rink, all kinds of sports fields, and is just a few minutes walk from our townhouse. Unfortunately, Jake tires quickly and walking even half of the park's 6 mile trail is a grueling exercise. And anyway, until this last weekend, the weather has been intolerable. Arctic cold fronts brought several days of snow flurries and we went 2 weeks in which the temperature rarely got above freezing. The park, like just about everything outside of these 4 walls, has existed more as an idea over the last few weeks than as a real, viable thing.

But all of this idle lying about has at least opened the door for planning out future adventures. On March 7th I'm heading to Phoenix for Spring Training. Hopefully reinvigorated by a long weekend of sunshine, I'll then continue west and settle again in my old stomping grounds of Pacific Beach, San Diego. I'll probably spend the rest of March in San Diego then slowly start heading north after the NCAA tournament comes to a close. I should be back in the Bay by the end of April, and after spending some time at home, perhaps a week or so, it will back to the road. I am currently planning a 5 month expedition across the continuous 48. I'll be setting off from San Fran sometime in the middle of April and I plan on touching down in NYC by the middle of Sept. All stops in between are currently being weighed on points of convenience, general interest, cost, and novelty. If anyone has any suggestions, or better yet, knows anyone who would be willing to let me sleep on their couch for an indefinite time at some point this summer, then I would be more than appreciative. Anyone who assists in my journey will be rewarded with a postcard from whichever destination they contribute to my itinerary. Sweet, huh?

Oooh, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure just came on. I'll write more later.

A Parable For Why Jake Needs To Stay On the Couch And Rest Right Now Instead of Yelling At Me For Not Letting Him Go Outside And Do Things

2007-02-10T13:10:00.000-08:00

I remember reading a poem once, or maybe it was a short story, in which the writer describes a farm after an especially horrible and violent storm. In great detail the piece tells of the flooded crop, the uprooted trees, the battered roofs and dented silos, livestock lying dead amidst the rubble of pig-pens and old barns, the windmill leaning to kiss the earth, stuff like that, and then describes the old farmer stepping out from the cellar to take stock of the damage. The farmer is sad and then angry. He laments his bad fortune and curses god and mother-nature for their indiscriminate wrath.

From this point in the story there's several resolutions that could all serve our current circumstances in a unique way. 1) The farmer puts on his work gloves, steps out into the post-storm sunlight, and starts picking up the pieces. 2) The farmer receives news of his neighbor down the road who was caught out in the storm and died, putting his own misfortune into perspective. 3) The farmer turns despondent and remiss, letting his farm slowly wither and fade, and lives the remainder of an impoverished and unsatisfying life.

All of these endings are applicable to Jake's situation now, but also all kind of prosaic and obvious, and frankly boring. This particular story chooses an ending that I remember caught me completely off-guard at the time, and now seems more pertinent than ever. Eager to mend the damage from the horrific storm, the farmer immediately sets out with his winter-coat, his snow-boots, and his toolbox, and slaves all day until the sun dips below the flat horizon. Satisfied with all the work he has done, the farmer decides to retire to the house and spend the rest of the night by the fire. He resolves to be up early and working again the following morning. In total darkness the farmer starts to walk towards his house. He is tired, his muscles are sore, the freezing winter air numbs his nerves, his emotions are still seething from the tumultuous episode of the storm. The farmer reaches the patio and steps onto the bricked path that leads to the front door. Having neglected to salt the walkway, the ice is thick and smooth. The farmer's foot slips and he drops to the ground like a cartoon character who's stepped on a banana peel. The farmer, just yards from his house, hits his head on a rock and dies instantly. The end.

Inch By Inch

2007-02-06T05:29:00.000-08:00

The last few days have been as good as we could hope for. When I posted that last message on Friday night, we were all heading back to our hotel rooms for another bout of fitful sleep. My mind raced all night. I dreamed that Jake and I were playing paintball against Jeff Shields and Bobby Knight. I was getting angry because Jake was stuffing his mouth with BBQ ribs and not paying any attention to the game. We kept getting shot at and Jake would just sit there eating his ribs and wiping BBQ sauce all over my shirt.

I wake at 7:30 and walk to the ICU unit. I find my dad in his gown getting ready to enter the room. We go in together and sit quietly while the doctors take their rounds and discuss his condition. "Jake's oxygen saturation has been improving," they say. "His PEEP can be lowered for a trial run this afternoon. We'll monitor his response to that and consider extubation for late this evening or early in the morning. The cultures show a response to the Vanco and for now we'll keep the doses steady on that. X-rays show the MeRSA has been contained through the night so we can start breathing easier on that front. What we'll watch now is the ARDS induced spontaneous pneumo. His lungs are still a mess – residual infections, stray bacterium, ulcerated and/or necrotic tissue in the lungs and stomach – these are the things we'll pay special attention to for the time being. Let's get him on some Flolan. See if we can avoid putting a pinch on his stomach. Keep the oxygen at 8."

Jake's eyes are closed and he doesn't seem to be comprehending any of it. Dad and I nod and do our best to pretend like we understand. I'm learning how to decipher certain bits and pieces of what they say, but it's still mostly nonsense. Their coded language is best interpreted by studying facial expressions. You look for signs that indicate general trends – good or bad, urgent or plodding, effective or futile – and ignore the details and technical jargon. It's like looking through a window with the blinds partly drawn. You collect evidence by focusing on what's unobstructed, then create crude images to fill in what's hidden. You put it all together and you can come up with an approximation of the truth. It's the best you can do.

On Saturday morning the obvious signs are almost all good. His fever has been in double-digits for 18 hours. He's stopped reacting violently when his eyes open. When we say his name he can raise his hand as high as the restraints will allow. He's stopped fighting the breathing machine. His skin has some color. A just barely perceptible spark flickers somewhere behind his eyes. Life lives there.

Dad and I have breakfast in the cafeteria. The bland, greasy, mushy food manages to taste like a gourmet feast. Jake is floating in some anesthetic non-world, far from his hell, and his condition is more stable than it's been since he arrived at the hospital 7 days ago. Dad and I fall into our usual banter. We speculate on the Super Bowl. Dad thinks it will be a 4 touchdown Colts lead by halftime. I think the foul weather will play to Chicago's advantage and I do my best to defend Rex Grossman. Neither one of us cares. We both agree that with The Departed and Blood Diamond DiCaprio has finally turned the corner. Alan Arkin's character in Little Miss Sunshine was incredible and it's too bad his character had to die because the movie fell a little flat afterward. So what's the deal with Obama? Does this guy actually have any policies or is he just a personality? We could be at Nation's getting breakfast before a 10am tee-time. We're finally a bit relaxed.

We receive yet more promising news in the afternoon as Jake's condition continues to progress. The head of the Infectious Diseases Department comes up to the ICU to check on my brother and give the rest of us a layman's explanation of what's going on. In short, the doctor's have found a combination of antibiotics that will keep the staph from doing any more damage to his lungs. The pneumonia is, and will be, something we're just gonna have to let resolve itself. The pneumonia is severe but in light of Jake's age and general health he has a very strong chance of getting through this okay. The doctor puts a hand on my dad's shoulder and smiles. In other words, as far as the infection goes the worst of the storm has passed and now we can concentrate on damage control. Not to get ahead of ourselves, but in a few days it will just be a matter of cleaning up the mess.

The latest X-rays look better. At 5:30pm Jake has a breathing test. The doctors predict that he'll be able to last 45 minutes with the machine turned off. During the test he's able to breath on his own for an hour and 50 minutes with his saturation never falling below 80%. All this comes as a very pleasant surprise and a much needed sheaf of unequivocally positive news. So far today, only steps forward. We decide to celebrate with a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant downtown. We get seated right by the door and get hit by wafts of cold air every time someone walks in or out. The service is slow. The food is just okay and the wine is a little sour. But like breakfast in the cafeteria, none of it matters. We could have been at Chili's or the French Laundry. The food tastes as good as we feel. As we're finishing our last bottle of wine mom gets a phone call from the hospital. Jake has been extubated. The perfect capper to a great day. They're gonna let Jake try and get through the night with just the nose and chest tubes, but the bulky PVC looking apparatus lodged down his throat is now gone.

Super Bowl Sunday. Still adjusting to the new time-zone, I wake early again. Up in the ICU I'm alone with Jake for the first time since his extubation and I'm startled to find that he can speak. He is absolutely delirious. They've had him on morphine through the night and he's just now starting to come down. He tells me the walls are orange and then he shudders in fear when he explains that there are cameras and microscopes in the ceiling spying at him. It's a bittersweet morning. He's coming back to life but the cost of that awareness is terrible pain and uncertainty. He has no memory of the last 6 days of his life and he has absolutely no clue where he is, how he got there, or what he's doing. He tells me he wants Chef Chao. Lindsey shows up and Jake lectures her on the importance of taking the express train. The whole thing is bizarre. He kicks his legs out. He fights the arm restraints. He tells me to hang around for a while so I can meet his younger brother. He tries to curl up into the fetal position and then jerks out splay-legged and supine. It's like he has DT's.

The whole day is like this. The doctors give him Adivan to try and help the anxiety but nothing works. He complains about pain all over his body. He says that he can't breathe and thinks that he's gonna die. His breathing is a little suspect. His oxygen saturation hovers between 85%-95%. Not ideal but okay for now. Any worse and the doctors will have to put the mouth tube back in. But any better and they might be able to take out the chest tube the following morning. Jake fights the pain and is as surly as ever. He calls the nurse an asshole. He tells me to fuck-off when I try and massage his arm. "What the fuck is with Lindsey's jacket?" he says. "Is she fucking wearing a black jacket? Fuck that." He tells me that one of the interns he works with has a huge rack and a fat ass, and is a slut. Without segue, he then asks for his mommy and apologizes for being a bad boy. It's just weird.

In the afternoon the doctors okay a dosage of Haledol, an antipsychotic that would put an ordinary person to sleep for a week. The jerking movements slow and then stop. He's still delirious but his mind is noticeably more sedate. As the day wears on he grows less and less disoriented. We put the Super Bowl on the TV in his room. "Do you know who's playing, Jake?" "Chicago versus Nebraska." Close enough. "What day is it, Jake?" "It's May 27th, 2006. I've never been to Seattle. I'm in Chicago on the 6th floor." "It's actually February 4th and you're at Barnes hospital in St. Louis." "Okay, thanks guys. I'm really glad you could all come here."

Doctors come by through the late evening and into the night. They all explain to Jake what's going on and you can sense that he's starting to comprehend his situation. By the time the Super Bowl ends he knows that it's February and that he's in St. Louis. By the time Lindsey and I return from the cafeteria at 10pm he knows who we all are and he knows that he has a bad case of pneumonia. He is in horrible pain and it's difficult to watch him struggle. He nearly comes to tears any time someone leaves the room and he begs that someone stay with him through the night. One by one we slowly make our way back to the hotel room. Matt and Janine go, then my dad, then Lindsey and I step out around 2am. My mom holds his hand through the night. Everyone sleeps.

(That picture was actually taken on Monday morning. Despite how it might look, Jake is considerably more "with it" today. Enough so, anyway, that the doctors though it prudent that dad, Matt, and Janine could return home.)

Day 1

2007-02-03T08:43:00.000-08:00

After 22 hours of flying, 5 layovers, 18 total hours spent in various airports, and 4 hours on a bus, I have finally arrived in St. Louis. It's cold here.

I was picked up at the airport at 9:30am central time by Matt, Lindsey, and Dr. Polites, one of Jake's senior advisors in the E.R. Ordinarily he's Jake's unforgiving boss but right now he's just another concerned friend. After a gregarious and large-hearted midwest welcome, Dr. Polites briefed me on Jake's condition as we drove to the hospital.
Here's what I learned: Jake has been diagnosed with a bacteria called Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA), which, as you'll discover if you look it up on Wikipedia or search Google, is a grave and nasty thing indeed. The pneumonia that he caught at the beginning of the week had the effect of weakening his immune system and opening the door for the MRSA to take hold in his lungs. MRSA is what's known as a "super-bug". In most respects the bacteria resembles more common forms of Staphylococcus (or Staph) but earns it's ominous moniker because of it's resistance to the antibiotics that make Staph a containable and far less serious infection. Knowing that Jake is infected with MRSA though, is only the initial phase of the diagnostic process. Several strains of MRSA exist, each adapted to resist certain antibodies, but each also, we must hold out hope, susceptible to the right combination of other antibodies. Figuring out which strain of MRSA Jake has and then figuring out which combination of antibiotics can kill it, will be the next steps. That's the big picture.

This morning I walked in from the cold and found my mother sitting tiredly in the ICU waiting room. I had not seen my parents in 8 months. My mom's eyes looked glossy and red, not like she recently had been crying, but instead her eyes told of slow and sleepless nights, of the strain of staring too long at a puzzle and yet still unable to find the piece that fits. She was not nervous, or fidgety, or on-edge, as I had expected. Last night and early this morning were relatively uneventful as Jake's conditioned remained stable, and surely the knowledge that the entire family would soon be together helped re-knit the frays of her beleaguered nerves. As you can imagine, our greeting was emotional. When I left Laos 2 days ago I knew that I should be in St. Louis. After hugging mom I realized that I NEEDED to be here.

Moments later my dad walked into the waiting area after being with Jake in his room. My dad's demeanor was transparent and immediately felt – he looked strong as ever and full of optimism. People who know my father well, know that he has a soft heart. He has no interest in retreating behind the stoic posturing of manhood. When my dad displays emotion, you know that it's genuine. So when he came practically skipping through the hallway, I didn't have to consider that this was some front to protect his true feelings, but could instead let my own fears and doubts get swallowed by his evident hopefulness. Seeing my father's slight smile as we walked toward each other made me briefly forget where I was and the purpose for our being there. We were all together at last, and it felt good.

And I could not have chosen a better time to arrive. My father's good cheer was for a reason. This morning Jake's fever finally dropped below triple digits. Moreover, as my father sat with him awaiting my arrival, Jake opened his eyes for this first time in days and was able to do so without agitating the breathing machine or having muscle spasms. Even better yet, when my dad called his name, Jake was able to briefly open his eyes and nod in acknowledgement. My bro's awareness is a huge step forward for us, and was certainly an auspicious way to begin the morning. Jake's improved condition, coupled with my arrival, had us all in high spirits. As we all got caught up (obviously there's a lot to talk about after traveling the globe for 8 months), sharing jokes, and trading playful insults like we're accustomed to, the mood was marked by a very firm confidence in Jake's eventual recovery, not if but how soon. After spending 40 some odd hours filled with the worst kind of dread and uncertainty, sharing such a light-hearted morning with my family was positively reinvigorating.

Around 10:30am I got the okay to go in and see my brother. After being let through the locked double-doors and into the ICU "staging area", as I'll call it, I was able to see into his room from behind another wall of glass. The wall is covered with indecipherable medical papers, and from the outside the best an observer can do is get incomplete glances of the patient. After waiting for the nurse to complete her round of readings and other regularly scheduled nurse things (Jake is definitely the doctor of this family), I put on a yellow medical gown, some latex gloves, and finally a breathing mask, and walked gingerly into the room. For the last several days I have been envisioning Jake layed up in the hospital bed. I've pictured the tubes disappearing into his throat and up his nose, the I.V.'s stemming from his arms, the computers and monitoring equipment, the sallow skin, the beeping noises (god, the beeping noises), and even that raw smell of decay. But I just wasn't prepared to face head-on what I saw. It's not a word thing. The best I can do is metaphor and that would just be for show anyway. It's instinctual. It's in the gut. All those sights and smells and noises descend on you all at once and you realize that you're not looking at your brother but just some husk of a body that might as well be an old coconut lying on the beach waiting to be taken to sea. Okay, so maybe metaphor helps. But only because the only other way I could let out this feeling is by crying, and blogs don't cry. I just sat there looking at him. I couldn't speak. Nothing. Just tears. The breathing machine sucking in and then back out, like an accordion bag. Jake was completely motionless. And this was a good day!?!?!? Mom came in and joined me. She encouraged me to speak to him. All I could manage was his name. At this his eyes reluctantly came open. All whites. His once fierce hazel irises just kind of sat there half concealed above his eye-lid. It was like a bad actor trying too hard to look stoned. I could detect in his face some recognition that he knew it was me. But more than anything, I saw in his eyes a vague recognition of himself; the disconcertment of being an eye-witness to his own bad dream. As he became more and more aware of our being there, you could see him becoming more and more aware of his own being there. The self-realization of the circumstances finally coming to. All that pain, the severity of the illness, the shock, the fear...all at once, heavy like a brick, or like a bullet coming too fast to evade, the shot hitting you before you hear the crack of the gun. The shock of it. This thing down my throat. These straps tying my arms to the bed. This sharp knife cutting through my chest with each breath. I'm a doctor. I know what this means. Until...

Shortly after we leave, Jake is sedated again for the afternoon. His responses weren't nearly as violent as they were yesterday and the doctors assure us that with each time he gains awareness he'll resist less and less. The parylitic he's been receiving has not just turned off his muscles but his brain also. Jake has to learn about what's happening to him just as we do. And if there is anything that Jake hates, and I mean maybe his greatest horror of all, it's to be the last one to know. He wants to be alert and he wants to be aware of what is going on. It's part of his most fundamental self and I guarantee he will be fighting like a madman to keep awake. This is a good thing.

The see-saw. We come back from lunch and once again Jake is fighting to come out of sedation. His fever is back to 102f. He opens his eyes for the briefest moment. He winces. His forehead furrows. He tries to clench his fist but does not have the strength. He tugs against the ropes that tie his arms to the bed. He turns his foot and lifts his knee in a slow motion jerk. Another battle in a long war. His actions are unmistakable. It's the will of a man overcome by pain and desperation, but fighting anyway. It's resolve. The latest round of culture tests come back inconclusive. Jake then sleeps.

Right now we all sit in the waiting room.

Bad News

2007-02-01T01:43:00.000-08:00

As some of you already know, over the last several days my older brother, Jake, has fallen very seriously ill. After contracting the flu late last weekend his condition quickly worsened and he was checked into the hospital on Sunday night with a case of pneumonia. As the doctors would soon find, his pneumonia was quite severe. His lungs were completely filled with fluid and within a very short time his respiratory system failed. By Monday Jake was no longer able to breathe on his own and things were looking very grim. The doctors' next step was to hook Jake up to a breathing machine. First, however, he had to be heavily sedated with doses of a parylitic, which means they had to paralyze his body in order that his still functioning nervous system wouldn't resist the breathing apparatus. Since that time, Jake has essentially remained unconscious. When the first doses of paralytic wore off on Tuesday night, he briefly showed signs of awareness as my sister and other brother sat by his bedside. Unfortunately, even that feeble interaction had the effect of further agitating his condition and the doctors had to immediately re-paralyze him. From my current understanding, Jake has since remained unresponsive.

That's the bad news. Since Tuesday Jake's condition has remained relatively stable. There have been a few scary moments, but for the most part things seem to be improving, or at least not getting worse. His breathing capacity continues to inch toward normalcy and his other vital signs are also keeping relatively steady. But for every 2 steps forward there seems to be 1 step back. As the doctors' said, he is clearing but by no means out of the woods yet. Unfortunately the doctors have not been able to pinpoint exactly why so many complications have arisen over the last few days. Along with his breathing, his sustained fever and minor twitching are the most salient issues for concern right now. A few tests were taken yesterday, including a spinal tap to check for meningitis, and they all came back negative. The doctors will continue to administer more tests over the next few days until they identify the specific nature of the illness.

Basically, we are all playing a waiting game at this point. Our mindset right now is on the short-term. We anxiously watch each passing hour and expect a breakthrough to occur at any minute. But in reality, as the doctors' have tried to tell us, it is much more pragmatic to take the long-view. Jake's condition is critical and highly volatile but the outcome of his situation, good or bad, will unfold over the course of the next several days or even weeks. Not knowing exactly what his ailment is makes this even truer. The doctors cannot begin to take proactive measures until they know what they're up against. As difficult as it may be, we must all be patient to let the process go at its intended speed. I'll be sure and keep you updated as time passes.

As for me, I am waiting around in the Bangkok airport to board a flight for St. Louis. I'm doing my best not drive myself crazy with worry. I should be arriving in the 27th city sometime Thursday evening or perhaps Friday morning. Obviously my globetrotting will currently be put on hold. Incidentally, in my last post I paid notice to certain things that are taken for granted during the course of our everyday lives. Unfortunately, sometimes it takes a devastating incident like this to put those things back into perspective. But it shouldn't have to. Obviously, your thoughts and prayers would be much appreciated. But do me one more favor if you can: if you have any brothers or sisters, or your parents, or any loved ones for that matter, give them a call real quick just to say hello. I know it's kind of corny (actually very corny), but it would mean a lot to me, and will mean the world to them.

Back To Work

2007-01-29T07:06:00.000-08:00

2 days ago I left Bangkok. I stayed there for a week this time around. A week that felt more like an eternity, and depending on your spiritual beliefs, a week that might certainly have eternal implications. For the sake of sharing with you the full breadth of my travels – the good, bad, and ugly – I will say of this recent stay in Bangkok that it shared the same basic elements that a worried parent might imagine of their child's 21st birthday spent in Las Vegas. Pause for a moment, play the role of said worried parent, and see what manifests...While, for the sake of decency, I will eschew any further details, I urge the moralists among you to consider your own private desires, your fantasies, and then consider a world in which fulfilling them is not only possible but very easily done. I can see my parents wincing right now. Though as possibly ashamed or disappointed as they are, I bear no regrets nor feel I owe any apologies. For the record, and some small circles among you have the full story, nothing that happened was overly imprudent nor anything I would call deviant. What happened over the course of that week could make for a rather humorous montage in a movie that would easily pass for an R rating. Maybe, mom, I'll even tell you about it one day.

Bangkok, highlighted by a few crazy nights, was also a place of some sobering goodbyes. On the 21st, Fergus and his buddy Joyce took an early morning flight to Kuala Lumpur where they will stay for a short time before moving on to Australia and New Zealand. Fergus made for a good friend on this trip. In the 2 months we traveled together we shared some amazing experiences, from the trek in Laos, to New Year's in Krabi, to the surreal week we just finished in Bangkok. As I type this, I am watching the Arsenal v. Man U game, and actually enjoying it! Becoming a soccer fan has perhaps been my most dramatic lifestyle transformation since I phased out underwear about 2 years ago. And I owe it all to Fergus. His seemingly endless supply of energy and his always timely and hilarious quips (which became known as Fergusisms), has made the just completed leg of this journey a breeze. And arriving just as he did, as Ryan was making his way home, made Fergus' presence all the more welcome. Agent Smith, too, has also left my company. A few days ago we met up with 2 girls from back home, Carly Norr and Julia Sakis, and for the next 2 months Ace will be escorting them through the larger part of Southeast Asia. They are currently side-stepping landmines in Cambodia.

One of the most unfortunate aspects of long-term travel, as this recent series of farewells has made clear, is its impermanence. What is true one day, is not true the next. Things that in our normal lives are taken for granted – friends, family, home, a quiet place to have a cup of good coffee and read the paper – when traveling are searched for and measured on a day to day basis and often completely lacking. I can only do my best to compensate for these things by accepting short-term facsimiles. This is partly what makes drinking so appealing. Alcohol, as you know, is probably the easiest way to bridge the gap between strangeness and familiarity. The person who at the beginning of a long night at the bar is at first a stranger, after enough drinks can be the best friend you've ever had. But these kinds of relationships, as we all know, comes with their own set of complications. Namely, the next day you're left with that hollowed out feeling and the same emptiness that lured you to the bar in the first place is perhaps even deeper and more crushing than before. As it was, first with Ryan, then with Ace and Fergus, I was able to hold on to some permanence, some stability, even among the whirlwinds of travel. I needn't seek out, or try to re-create, those pieces of home and we could each lean on each other to validate our experiences by sharing them with one another. And it was genuine. But now the dynamic has changed.

Knowing I would be striking out on my own at the end of January, I contemplated a few options. Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, and China were all heavily considered. In the end I chose to return to Laos. It was here in Laos that I first fell in love with Southeast Asia back in November. The geography of the country, landlocked between Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and Burma, and taking shape along the banks of the Mekong River, is absolutely gorgeous. Seemingly endless expanses of lush and untouched jungle, the pulsating current of the Mekong, and giant limestone monoliths, all make this place a treasure of natural beauty. And the people here are beyond friendly. It is impossible to walk down the street here without being greeted by a big smile and a loud "sabai-dee". And still just entering into the tourism industry, opening its borders to tourists for the first time in 1997, the oft dehumanizing aspects of traveling are not nearly as apparent here as elsewhere in the region (we'll see how much this changes over the years; I'd like to believe there's something unique in the Laos character that will be able to resist the temptations of excessive commercialization, but the Laos people, too, are human after-all).

But above all, what drew me back to Laos was work. I've shaved the beard, cut my hair, and I am now officially employed (actually unofficially – more on that later). As I've mentioned at least a few times, it was in Laos, in a small village called Veng Vieng, that I first learned how to, and fell in love with, rock climbing. And I'm back for more. Laos Rock Climbing Shop, owned and operated by Jun Sangthong, and staffed by his girlfriend, Na, and 2 younger brothers, Noi and Bun, is where I will be working for the next month (or more), teaching beginner's climbing lessons and helping out with the day-to-day operation of the shop. Predictably, the pay is, well, non-existent, but I do get some compensation. For one, I get to climb as much as I want over the course of the next month. A few days a week, depending on the weather, we don't see any customers, and on those days I have the freedom to take whatever equipment I want and go off on my own or with one of the brothers and climb to my heart's content. Second, I get 3 square meals a day. In the morning we have coffee and soup, for lunch we usually have Laos sausages that we bring out to the crag with us, and for dinner Na will make a proper Laos style feast that we all sit around and eat together at Jun's house on the outskirts of the village. Another exciting thing is that in the 2nd week in February one of Jun's good friend's from Germany (he used to be married to a German woman) is coming to Veng Vieng with a rock drill. In the next 2 months about 30 new routes are planned to go up in the surrounding area and there's a good chance that I'll be able to bolt at least one of them myself. As climbing enthusiasts know, putting up your own route is a kind of immortalizing undertaking, both getting to name the route and getting authorial credit in future guidebooks. Before that happens though, I'll have to get significantly better at climbing. Lastly, and perhaps the most appealing aspect of working here at the climbing shop is that it provides a space for me to make a home (if a short-term one). The Sangthong family has already made me feel like one of their own. Jun has given me keys to his house and to the guide shop and has told me in no uncertain terms to treat his things as if they were my own. Veng Vieng, for its part, is an ideal place to spend an extended amount of time. There is a good coffee-shop/bakery that gets the Bangkok post every morning and several restaurants with big screen TV's that show DVD's and live sporting events. About a mile south of Veng Vieng is a cement factory where there are daily pickup basketball games played by the factory's onsite workers. The guesthouse I'm staying at is also a familiar place from my last visit here. In November I was thrown a surprise party on my 24th birthday by the family that runs the establishment. Unbeknownst to me, the woman at the reception desk, Connie, noticed on my passport that my birthday was going to take place during my stay here and she arranged for a party on my behalf. I was treated to a BBQ fish dinner, a birthday cake, and a bottle of homemade opium liquor from Connie's father. When I returned a few days ago, she didn't immediately recognize me as I had shaven my beard and cut my hair. After a moment of studying my face inquisitively she ran from behind the counter and greeted me with a big hug and immediately escorted me up to the same room I had stayed in before.

Earlier in this post I did my best to impart how emotionally exhausting traveling can sometimes be, especially when you are on your own. The strain of dislocation, of transience, and what ultimately amounts to loneliness, gets compounded over time and can weigh heavily on what should otherwise be a thrilling thing. To come back to a place like Veng Vieng, where I can have at least some of the stability of home (a favorite restaurant for instance, or being on a first name basis with the owner of the local bookshop) while also experiencing all that comes with traveling in an exotic locale, is understandably alluring. Plus I get to climb. A lot.

Thailand Backroads

2007-01-16T19:41:00.001-08:00

Our road trip up Thailand's stretch of the Malay Peninsula has officially come to a close. We are now back in Bangkok and just biding our time until we each travel our separate ways this following Sunday. To recap: the journey lasted 11 days in total, during which we stayed in 4 different cities/towns/municipalities, whatever, spent a net total of 22 hours on Thailand's surprisingly efficient, clean, and comfortable public buses, watched countless DVD's and televised movies dubbed in Thai (The Mighty Ducks easily being the most enjoyable among them), managed to refrain from getting drunk on at least 6 of those nights, ate some of the spiciest food imaginable, played hours of basketball, watched more soccer than I ever thought I would in my life, and generally had a very good time.

Though the trip was enjoyable for a million reasons, it was not the trip we had planned it to be. Initially our primary goal was to simply save money. This very straightforward initiative led us to seek out the names on the map that we had never heard of, cities that didn't show up in the guide books or grace the covers of the pamphlets in guide shops, places we could fairly assume that tourists didn't usually travel, and where as a result things would be cheaper, there would be fewer temptations, our time would be more leisurely, and we could expect to be treated more like foreign dignitaries than like ambulatory wallets. Our predictions were partially right.

What we found along the Malay Peninsula was not the expanse of loosely connected agrarian villages that we had expected, but instead a region of vast emptiness occasionally punctuated by mid-sized cities and the squat concrete buildings which house a given districts Social Services Office say, or the Ranong Province Biosphere Reserve Administration Center. Our first stop was the city of Pang Nga, which is just a boat ride north of Phuket. Here we discovered that even away from the metropolises of Bangkok or Phuket, Thai life does not consist of the quaint repose that we were hoping to find. To be fair Pang Nga actually turned out to be something of an anomaly (at least for 1 of the 2 nights we were there). While this city of merely one main street has its share of go-go bars and unsavory temptations, all in all its most notable attractions are of a more bucolic nature. The surrounding countryside proves a pleasant day's hike with a network of massive limestone caves that hold centuries old Bhuddist shrines and some very strange and wonderful sights aside. Largely Pang Nga's more village-like feel is a consequence of the 2004 tsunami, which, as you'll remember, essentially wiped out this entire area of Thailand. Evidence of the tsunami still scars the province. Even miles off the coast it is not uncommon to see flipped boats or uprooted palm trees strewn over deserted plots of land like garbage. My guess is that before the tsunami struck, and probably just a few years from now, Pang Nga was and will be more city than village.

Our next stop after Pang Nga was the city of Surat Thani. Bordering Bandon Bay, Surat Thani is the major jumping off point for travelers heading to the Gulf islands of Ko Samui, Ko Phangan, and Ko Tao. Surat Thani indeed sees its share of Western tourists but they are all generally in transit to those other places and the city itself gets no real mention as a tourist destination. In our 4 nights there we found Surat to be, if on a lesser scale, almost identical in nature to Bangkok and other major Thai cities. Large and seedy looking hotels, ubiquitous massage parlors, bars, dancing clubs, and cheap-eats at every turn characterize Surat's downtown area. It was here that we fell like rocks off a ledge from our purported game plan of saving money and more reserved modes of entertainment. Surat Thani is cheap, no doubt about that, but it's become painfully obvious that when something is cheap you don't always spend less money, you just buy more of it. In other words, el vino did flow. Perhaps the highlight of our stay in Surat was the night we happened upon Boogie Bar. In contrast to the establishment's unassuming and dime-a-dozen front, once inside the patron is immediately transported into an absolutely surreal setting that is 2 parts Texas ranch-hand watering hole and 1 part Thai. We're talking bull skulls mounted on the walls, confederate flags dangling from the rafters, waiters in ten-gallon hats and leather vests, old wagon wheels, all types of cowboy themed bric-a-brac sitting on the bar shelves, and of course, a live band with its bandana-ed and banjo pickin front man belting old Merle Haggard and Hank Williams tunes in an absurd Thai-cowboy twang. But for the 3 of us, the place was filled exclusively with Thais. Perhaps strangest of all was that they were all singing along with every song. Who knew that Thai people love country music? Just odd.

After Surat we decided to rededicate ourselves to our initial goals and with the help of wikipedia we identified the inconspicuous provincial center of Chumpohn as a city seemingly aligned with our newly restrained desires. A 5 hour bus ride from Surat through the peninsula's aforementioned rural void deposited us into the austere city center of Chumpohn's capital district. From our 6th story, $9.00/night, 3 person suite in the city's finest hotel, we overlooked a very unimpressive pseudo-cityscape that recalled the moribund concrete framework of Prague's post-soviet outskirts. Perfect. This would finally be the place to get some rest and save some money. Later that evening, walking solo through the city, I happened upon a basketball gym where 9 jersey clad Thais were in the midst of pre-game warm-ups. As it happened the Chumpohn Health Services Department was gearing up for their mid-season matchup against the District 5 Steel Workers squad. A man short, the Health Services Department called me over from my seat near the entrance and in their barely comprehendible English and my even worse Thai it was agreed with the District 5 Steel Workers captain that I could fill in as the 5th man for the HSD. I might as well have been Lebron James to these guys. Even at my abbreviated stature I was the 2nd tallest man on the floor and was able to dominate the defensive frontcourt while also playing a Bill Waltonesque high-post against the Steel Workers ineffective 2-3 zone. After storming to an early lead, and receiving a stunned applause from the opposing team for executing a behind the back dribble en route to a layup, I deferred most of the scoring to my two running mates, Thoon, and Sammy Krung – Thoon a lithe power forward willing to run the break, and Sammy the bank-shooting assassin, a-la his nominal counterpart, the Celtic great, Sam Jones. In a rout the HSD handed District 5 Steel its 1st loss of the season (or so it seemed they were trying to tell me). After the game I retreated back to our hotel in a very placid state of mind, more than happy to let the rest of the night slip by in front of the TV or hiding behind a book. But no. What do I find when I return to the hotel? Fergus chugging from a bottle of Mekong whiskey, Ace putting on his dancing shoes, and 2 Thai girls in their weekend skivvies ready and willing to take the newly arrived farangs for a night on the town.

THAILAND, YOU RELENTLESS SEDUCTRESS!

Apparently Agent Smith and Fergus had met these girls at a nearby restaurant, and the next thing any of us knew, the 5 of us, and another of these girls' friends, are sitting in a bar drinking cocktails and watching a song and dance performance by very scantily dressed girls that was really more like a pathetic karaoke performance than anything you'd expect to find on a professional stage. And I was personally loving every minute of it. Turns out that Chumpohn, despite its drab facade, is hardly lacking in the kinds of attractions that make Thailand so famous. And the 3 of us are absolute suckers for all of it. And the beauty of a place like Chumpohn is that we were the ONLY white people we saw the entire time. So in the same sort of way I was able to dominate the basketball game, being in those dance clubs in Chumpohn was like a group of A-list Hollywood actors showing up at the Round Up. Good times. We spent the next 4 days in Chumpohn drinking, being hungover, eating, and drinking some more. Again, not exactly how we planned things, but I'm not saying we didn't have a good time.

For our last stop on the tour, 2 Thai girls agreed to drive the 3 of us from Chumpohn to the coastal city of Hua Hin. None of us had ever heard of Hua Hin, not from the guidebooks or from other travelers, so we expected to find a sleepy little fishing village or at most a quiet getaway spot for Thai nationals. The girls driving tried their best to clue us in, but their English was virtually non-existent, and we were all hungover anyway so we didn't really care. What we discovered in Hua Hin was a bustling resort city, complete with a Hilton hotel, about 30 Starbucks, a McDonald's, a Burger King, a Giant mall with a state of the art Cineplex, a hundred other grotesquely lavish hotel resorts, and a massive stretch of waterfront condos which made me immediately think of Miami Beach. Apparently Hua Hin, though not a backpacker favorite, is hugely popular for European retirees and a place of conspicuous consumption for Thailand's own upper crust. Fancy restaurants and Vegas style clubs abound and our 2 escorts were eager to show us a good time. And so it was – back into the fray. Fortunately for us, each of the girls we were with owns and operates at least 2 beauty salons and they both have plenty of expendable income. They paid for the majority of a very nice seafood dinner that we had and then took us to a huge club in Hua Hin's downtown where I bet we all had a really good time, but I couldn't say for sure because I don't remember any of it. Somehow I woke up in a bar miles from where we had been the night before just in time to see the opening kickoff of the Eagles v. Saints game. All's well that ends well, I suppose. Our 2nd day in Hua Hin was predictably uneventful, and we ended up scrapping Petchaburi from our itinerary and coming back to Bangkok after our 2nd night in Hua Hin.

Now only 1 problem remains. No one knows where Fergus is. I'll keep you posted on his whereabouts.

New Beginnings

2007-01-07T21:39:00.000-08:00

It's been a hectic few weeks since my last posting on this space. Lots of major happenings here in Thailand, holiday festivities and end of the year blow-out bacchanalias. And literally "blow-outs", as I'm sure you've all heard, Bangkok being the most recent staging area for Thailand's increasingly proactive coterie of militant separatists. Fucking assholes. There's some speculation that the bombings were directed at the inept and, as some see it, illegitimate undertakings of Thailand's post-coup government, but public opinion is pretty staunch on the supposition that this has nothing to do with the coup at all. Most people blame the Bangkok bombings on the same Muslim extremists that blew up 20 banks in southern Thailand back in August. Civil unrest in the southern provinces is at an all time high right now, as this predominantly Muslim region (largely ethnic Malays) push for independence or to be ceded to the Malaysian government. The Thai government for its part has been predictably obdurate on the issue. Southern Thailand is responsible for billions of dollars in tourism-based revenue every year, money that fuels the growth of one of the most robust economies in all of Southeast Asia. Which is precisely the problem. The last thing that these traditional Muslim communities want is to be infiltrated and whored out by throngs of "Westerners" whose interests (buying stuff, fancy hotels, girls, loud music, booze, etc.) are completely at odds with their own cultural values. I am extremely sympathetic to their cause. (See my first post.) These people should have every right to cultural preservation and should not be forced to convert to the religion of capitalism. Sincerely. But what the fuck? People and their goddamn bombs. It just doesn't make any sense to me. 2 days after X-mas I had to take a bus down to the Malaysia-Thai border in order to renew my visa. The bus driver ended up getting lost in Satun, a small province that borders Malaysia, and we spent at least 2 hours driving in circles along random city streets only a few miles from our destination. And why didn't our Thai driver just stop the minivan and ask someone for directions, saving us all a lot of time and grief? Because he was afraid. And we all were. One peek out the van's window revealed a street corner bristling with army-fatigued, booted, beret capped, and Argus-eyed soldiers, all of them cradling very large automatic weapons and standing their posts with grave purpose. Burqa clad women streaked across the vista in ghostly blurs. Young men congregated around benches and under the tarp canopies of street-side food stalls, returning the soldiers watchfulness with their own penetrating glares. No laughing or playful banter, just the slow, silent compression of resent. And there we were in the middle of it, driving around like a pack of idiots, our fear strung up like laundry across the wires of distrust going one way and disaffection going the other. But for the surrounding jungle landscape, I swear we could've been driving through the streets of Mosul. I urge any would be travelers to stay away from the southern tip of Thailand. Not sweet.
(The corresponding image was taken from Google images. I wouldn't dare take out my camera in that place.)

In additional sad, though decidedly less serious news, my traveling companion of 6 months, Ryan Donnelly, turned in his wandering boots on Dec. 19th and headed back stateside. As I told Ryan a few days ago, traveling without him has made me feel a bit deflated, like I'm walking around with just one shoe on. Traveling with a single person for 6 months is a loaded experience. I imagine it's something like matrimony, without certain obvious benefits of course. Adapting to another's quirks and exposing your own usually hidden self can be a strenuous undertaking and it's virtually impossible to avoid moments of irritation, exhaustion, and confrontation. But over time you learn to deal with each other's faults, ignore the annoyances, and strike a mutually agreeable balance between personal space and companionship. I can say without equivocation that Ryan was a model travel companion, always willing to compromise, tolerant of my impulsiveness, indulgent of my tiresome wont for petty debate, and generally compatible on every level. He is missed.

And such is the circle of life: a man dies, a child is born, and blah, blah, blah. It so happened that as Ryan was on his way out, I was able to forge a similar dynamic with 2 equally agreeable fellow travelers – Adam Smith, a friend from the way-back machine who'll henceforth be exclusively referred to as not Adam, but maybe Ace, or Ace-man, or Ace Bomb, or A-Sizzle and no Steak, or Atom Bomb, or Atomic Hot Sauce, or any variant thereof, and Fergus James Miller, a proper London bloke chalk full of the disarming charisma for which his part of the world is so well known. Since our triumvirate left Bangkok on Dec. 21 (A tragic thing, really, the news of our departure hurling the women into hopeless depression. I am still haunted by the image of their desperate waves from the curbside, goading us back to their open embrace as we pulled away in the taxi, a flood of their tears washing over their bare ankles and emptying with the rest of the filth into the gutters of Patpong.), we've been hanging out in and around the southern Thai enclave of Krabi. Adam and I spent the majority of our time on the tiny beach of Ton-Sai. As it happens, Ton-Sai is a mecca for rock-climbers. Thousand foot limestone crags jut from the surrounding turquoise waters like massive fangs. Unlike the granite peaks of Yosemite, which are famous for their sustained cracks and eminently flat faces, Krabi's limestone scarps are characterized by deep pockets, massive jugs (nope, not those kind), and severe overhangs. Whereas on the former type of rock the climbing is cerebral, methodical, and highly technical, climbing in Krabi is basically just an exercise in brute strength. Agility and balance become more and more crucial as the level of climbing becomes more difficult, but a day of climbing in Krabi is essentially a day of continual pull-ups (which facially must sound horribly meat-headish and dull, but trust me, is as enjoyable as any recreational activity around). Of our 8 days on the beach, Adam and I climbed 5 of them. We had the implausibly good fortune of running into one of my friends from Laos who himself just began working as a climbing guide on Ton-Sai and who was gracious enough to not only guide us for free but let us rent equipment at ridiculously low prices. As some of you may know, since a 3-day beginner's course that I took in Laos, I've cultivated something of a passion for rock-climbing, and you can expect climbing to be a recurring theme in this space. In fact, rock-climbing may turn out to be a unifying theme for the remainder of my travels. Consider yourselves warned.

After enduring some serious physical and psychological punishment (rock-climbing can sometimes be like a crucible, especially the higher up you go and the farther you have to fall), by the time New Year's Eve rolled around, Ace, Fergus, and I, along with our climbing buddy from Laos, Mr. Noi, decided a night of indiscreet partying was the reasonable thing to do. Around 7pm on the 31st, the 4 of us took a long-tail boat from Ton-Sai to the more upscale shores of Ao Nang. By 9:30 we were all retarded drunks. Soon afterward I time traveled to 2007. One minute I was drinking whiskey in Ao Nang, the next minute I was rubbing sleep from my eyes on Ton-Sai beach, surrounded by palm trees, the sun dawning just inches above some nearby cliffs, all things quiet and serene. Remember in Contact when Jodie Foster goes in the time machine and wakes up on that island? New Year's morning was something like that. "They should've sent a poet." I really don't remember a damn thing about N.Y's eve but here are some pictures to prove that I was indeed there. Your guess is as good as mine.

After a day of recovery on Ton-Sai, the 3 of us convened for a meeting of the minds in which we laid out an itinerary for the next 2 weeks. Having each blown a Thai fortune on reckless spending during the holidays, we made budgeting the order of the day. Our goal is to get to Bangkok on the 16th of Jan. having spent around $200 apiece. What this means is that we'll be avoiding all major tourist destinations or anywhere else we're likely to encounter inflated prices – hitting up the hinterlands, the backwater boondocks, easy-living farm life, that sort of thing. We'll be traveling strictly by local bus, eating at local haunts, staying at budget hotels, and most importantly, keeping the boozing to a minimum. I predict a lot of nights sitting around drinking beers and playing poker without any feminine distractions (sort of like college). The plan lacks glamour but certainly has its appealing aspects. For one, this will be an opportunity to see the "real" Thailand (I hate that phrase as much as you do), cities where tourists rarely travel, where day to day life is driven by internal mechanisms, and where we'll be perceived not as a commodity but just as an oddity. Our encounter with the locals are also likely to be in stark contrast to our dealings with Thai people elsewhere. Not that the Thais in the heavily touristed areas are dicks or something, but the nature of our relationships going forward are bound to take on a softer edge, less pragmatic and more personal perhaps, or at least held aloft by the strangeness of the occurrence. And even though between the 3 of us we can only speak a lick of Thai, we should be able to meet plenty of people and have a pretty good time. Then again, foreigners in search of the "real" California would likely end up in places like San Bernadino or Fresno, so this whole thing might to turn out to be a total disaster. I'll be reporting from the road. Until next time, mahalo.

Update From Bangkok and Thoughts On the Sex Trade

2006-12-19T22:52:00.000-08:00

Well, after 3 months of traveling around varying degrees of the 1st and 2nd world, I am now back in Thailand. I spent nearly 2 weeks in the northern part of the country in Chiang Mai, which is a relatively quiet and peaceful city. In fact, as major cities go, Chiang Mai, of all the cities I've been, best encapsulates the Zen quietude one would expect from a nation of Buddhists. My 2 week reprieve there was a much needed rest before coming back to Bangkok. And oh, Bangkok, what a sordid little world this is. Bangkok is something like a cross between Vegas, a sewage plant, a flea market, and what I sometimes imagine the 2nd or 3rd level of Hell to feel like (though, in this, our 2nd time through, we've come across some pretty temperate weather). But Bangkok is not all bad. In small doses it can be a decent place to spend time when en route to elsewhere. The food, once your stomach learns the right kind of bacterial defense, and once your palette adjusts to the nuclear grade chili sauces, is some of the best I've had. And cheap, like $3.00 will get you a hearty plate of chicken pad-tai, some spring rolls, and an ice-cold 20oz. Beer Chang. Likewise, as a post-prandial treat, you can walk yourself around any street corner in the city and lay down a measly $4.00 for an hour-long massage - with supplemental services offered for just a nominal surcharge (though, of course, I only know this from second-hand sources – excuse the pun). But while we're on the topic, this is as a good a time as any to talk about the whole Bangkok sex scene.

A lot has been made of Thailand's reputation, and from what I've seen here, the stereotypes are pretty accurate; sexual modesty is not a virtue of Thai culture. That is, the kinds of taboos and hush-hush attitudes about strippers and prostitution and pornography and all those kinds of things, that we in the Western World seem very eager to enforce, simply do not exist here. It's not that, let's call it "sex recreation", is ubiquitously flaunted here, but it operates in a very accessible and acceptable way. Going to the strip clubs or a brothel is just something someone chooses to do over a night at the movies or bowling. But be careful once you enter that world; sex recreation is not some leisurely game. It's composed of the same shady elements as the sex trade anywhere else, but of course with it's own local flavor. Take, for example, Patpong or Nana Square, two areas in the heart of Bangkok where the girls attack Western boys like swarms of jungle mosquitoes. To be white and stinking of vacationer's money, in Bangkok, is to be loved. Thai girls most definitely have Western tastes, are enthralled by the light eyes and hairy bodies, and are easily blinded by the assumption of our wealth. And those girls are relentless – clutching at loose limbs, shedding their clothes one enticing bit at a time, whispering unspeakable promises into our drunken ears, and all in all, calling out to the lonesome streetwalker like an oasis to the desert-stricken soul. But beware of the lady-boys, who can be some of the best looking broads out there to be sure, but whose honey jars between their legs are not honey-jars at all, but get snugged tightly under a pair of panties and wrapped around the backside so to be almost imperceptible as viewed in after-midnight swirly-vision. Plus, the lady-boys, for whatever reason, have proven to take a disproportionate liking to me, and I often find myself resorting to old MOL days, dodging and juking at every turn. And they're strong enough that once 2 or 3 of them have a firm hold on your arm, it's all you can do to break free. "You have gilfriend?" "You want girlfiend?" "You want boom-boom?" "Mmmm, kissy, kissy. Me no lady-boy. You feel. No lady-boy. Mmmmm, kissy, kissy." Like some debauched meditative mantra, looped until the dawnlight sends them all back into hiding.

Despite all the grabbing, suggestive petting, and the left-shoulder imp demanding otherwise, sometimes it's probably best just to watch. For a viewing experience you will not soon forget, grab a beer and sidle your way into just about any side-street bar you see. While the choices are seemingly endless, my recommendation would have to be either "Super Pussy" or "Kiss My Middle Face", a pair of go-go bars which each make for the quintessential Patpong experience, and where the subtlety and refinement of the evening's entertainment is matched only by the gaudy neon banners bearing the establishments' names. Once inside, at the cost of 2 beers and any claims to innocence, you'll see strippers doing ordinary stripper things of course, but you'll also see some just flat-out f'd-up exotic shit, like girls playing ping-pong with paddles stuffed inside their honey jars. (I'm really sorry, but there is just no way to do this tastefully.) If anyone tries to hand you a balloon, either refuse it or duck, darts will soon be flying, and those girls are not throwing the darts with their hands. Yes, they are legitimate honey-jar virtuosos; they'll draw face caricatures, uncork wine bottles, not just play ping-pong but swallow the things up whole and spit them back out at happy-to-oblige first-row oglers, remove bottle caps, play the harmonica, and could probably even do some engine repair with the right set of tools. It's a scene, man. No doubt.

To be fair though, as implied above, Thailand's reputation is not just on account of the strip-clubs, and hookers, lady-boys, porn outlets, and "massage" parlors (all that exists of course, and in droves), but what struck me especially in Bangkok, and is true to no less a degree on the islands or up north, is people's self-possessed attitudes about sex in general, regular non-sex-industry people, their lack of hang-ups and neuroses which tend to make the whole enterprise (sex, that is) somewhat confusing and often ridiculous in a different cultural context. From what I have gleaned in my short time here, it's not that sex is held in a simplistic light as some utilitarian undertaking, an animalistic routine devoid of any mystery or of the seductive interplay between two people making eyes across a barroom. Neither is it, obviously, that Thais hold up sex to some pristine light of the divine. Sex is neither glamorous nor purely carnal, but if managed correctly, can at worst be not ugly, and at best is nothing more or less than just fun. How, culturally, Thais have managed to get to this point, to strip sex of all the things that make American men put their heads down in shame when they walk out of the movie store with a bag full of porn (assuming he's even assured enough to make it that far), is a mystery. But whatever the case, I think it is a fine way to approach the whole mess.

TREK: PART II

2006-12-11T05:28:00.000-08:00

On that second morning of the trek, as is often the case when waking abruptly in a new place for the first time, it took me a moment to remember where I was and how I had gotten there. But unlike waking in a hotel room or a stranger's bed, where the surroundings may be different but still familiar enough, waking in a village hut, startled from sleep by a chorus-line of rooster caws, with a clay cistern boiling at my toes, the low lying mountain fog threatening to seep through the cracks in the thatched bamboo wall, and 10 or so agog children staring at me in stunned silence, the question of where and how, was supplanted by the question of whether or not I just was, whether these things were merely hypnagogic delusions or in fact based in the reality that I felt and smelled all around me.

As I sat upright from my sleeping bag and lifted my hands to rub the sleep from my eyes, the children, as though I might attack them at any moment, scampered from their position in the doorway and bolted for the outlaying forest. The thought that I might make one of them my breakfast, surely must have crossed their minds. The village chief, in the typical Asian squat (go to Chinatown and observe if you don't know what I mean) smoking a large hand rolled cigarette, and his wife, herself squatted over the cistern in which boiled our day's supply of water, both turned to me and smiled as the children fled. Though, they too, while laughing with me, still retained an element of distrust in their gaze, or if not distrust than uncertainty. To the adults we were as much an oddity as we were to the children. Our guides would explain that the adults from this village knew about white people, several had in fact seen them on trips to the Mekong villages, but only as they passed on boats going to or from Luang Prabang. Sometime in the 1950's a few French soldiers had come through the village to recruit them to fight against invading Vietnamese forces, but even the oldest villager was just an infant then and the story of the Frenchmen exists now in myth as much as in truth. We would learn later, after we had left, that next February this particular tribe, 21 families in all, who had occupied this land for the last 200 years, was abandoning the village to assimilate with the tribes closer to the Mekong. Kong explained that over the last few years the tribe had experienced an epidemic of mysterious deaths and that their land was now being haunted by the ghosts of those who had past. The village chief had informed Gao that our unlikely appearance was just another ominous portent demanding their immediate evacuation. We did not stay long that second morning as we had another long day of hiking before us, but as we packed our things and left we could all sense a general unease, a foreboding that resonated amongst the agape onlookers, something we could not discern until contrasted with our arrival at the next village where we were greeted with smiles, and laughter, and games, and a feast worthy of the day. It was Thanksgiving.

After only a few hours of relatively tranquil, if difficult, hiking, we stopped at a farmer's hut in the middle of a mountainside rice field to catch our breath, cool down in the shade of the hut, and have lunch. We ate some sticky rice and a few slices of melon and within a half hour were up again and trekking. All in all, the 2nd day of hiking went by smoothly and uneventfully; our guides opted to hire someone from the village to guide us to our next destination. The double-backing and general uncertainty that marked the first day's hike was no longer an issue. Around 3pm we descended a steep trail and came upon a pellucid mountain stream that cut a bending path through the otherwise hilly terrain. We walked the shallow banks of the stream for only 20 minutes before seeing a boy of maybe 12 clutching a jerry-rigged harpoon and sporting those old Connery-era James Bond snorkeling goggles. As we approached, the boy quickly dove back into the water and stayed submerged until we were several yards past him. Around the next bend we came upon a few young girls washing some garments. In no position to dive into the water and hide, these girls just watched and giggled as we stumbled past. What a bizarre group we must have looked to them. Within minutes we were stepping over a bamboo fence that gated the village where we would spend the rest of our 2nd day.

It turned out that Gao's now deceased father, a chief in his own day, used to frequent this village, maybe 10 times each year to trade livestock or exchange news or whatever, and as a young boy Gao would often tag along. It had been several years since Gao had been back, and several more since his father's death, but Gao was a well known figure amongst the nearby villages – the boy who had been sent off to the city to be educated, and who might likely never return. So upon seeing our guide, his adolescent features still recognizable to those who had not seen him for many years, a few of the older men anxiously came forward to greet him, whereupon we were all regaled with handshakes and an array of alien gestures that could only be interpreted as warm and welcoming. Certainly, any doubts that may have accompanied our arrival were put squarely to rest with Gao there to vouch for our goodwill. Indeed, it took some rather belabored explaining before the villagers would understand the nature of our visit; that we would hike all this way with no ulterior motive apart from to simply observe, was a concept that did not immediately strike the locals as genuine, and once they did come around to believing in our innocuous interests, our venture to them was seen as merely crazy. It is unlikely that in our time there we were ever able to convince the villagers (or ourselves, for that matter) otherwise.

The original plan had not been to spend the night at that 2nd village, but only to stop there just long enough for a proper meal before moving onward. However, our cheery reception and the very obvious excitement surrounding Gao's arrival, convinced us that this would be as good a place to spend the night as any. Soon after we had placed our bags down and been fed a meal of sticky-rice and boiled chicken (do you see a pattern developing here?), Kong, acting as interpreter, informed us that we were the first foreigners ever to be in this village and that the chief wished us to interact with the people as much as possible, particularly the children, despite the initial reluctance that we were likely to come across. Unsure of what social boundaries might restrict our interaction with the villagers, it was a great relief that the chief was so encouraging of our presence there. And his enthusiasm was palpable – literally – there was hardly a moment that he wasn't clutching one of our shoulders, or reaching out for another handshake, or running his hand through Gao's hair. It was like being in the company of an affectionate grandparent.

Despite the chief's cordiality, and the like of nearly all the villagers over the age of, say, 15, warming up to the children would prove a more gradual process. As in the first village, the youngsters crowded around our hut with the same cautious yet rapt curiosity that one might affect while watching a snake charmer. When I first came out of the hut holding a kataw (a small ball woven from rattan, and as ubiquitous in Laos as a basketball in the States), most of the children turned and ran, only peering back when they felt that they were at a safe distance, the girls appropriating their mother's for a shield, and the boys huddled anxiously under one of the raised huts. One kid was so startled that he turned and ran face first into a fence, which, though bringing the poor thing to tears, sent a wave of laughter through the crowd of adults and had the effect of tempering the youngsters' apprehension. One of the larger boys, taking a cue from the elders, stood courageously in the open yard, hardly flinching at my appearance. I showed him the ball and he tentatively stepped forward. I gave him an underhand toss, and though awkwardly backing up on his heels, clearly not accustomed to using his hands, he managed to clumsily coral the ricochet off of his forearm. To the delighted applause of the onlookers, he returned my throw, and the two of us were soon engaged in an old fashioned game of catch. Slowly, the boys huddled underneath the hut started inching forward. One by one they came close enough to intercept my throws and after several minutes there were 5 or 6 of us throwing the ball around in a circle. Andy and Fergus then emerged from the hut. The children instinctually stepped back and reassumed their defensive posture, but their fears vanished almost instantaneously. The children were much relieved to have Andy and Fergus join our game, two Brits as I mentioned, who quickly did away with all the catching and throwing, and instead started kicking the ball around like a hacky-sack. Suddenly, the same boys who'd been playing catch as gracefully as my sister (that is, not gracefully at all), were now handling the ball so effortlessly it was as though it was attached to their feet by an invisible string. At this unfortunate development (soccer winning out again, ugh) I resigned myself to spectator, not wanting to disrupt their play with my pathetic pedial dexterity.

It should be noted that all the while we played, off and on for a few hours, not once did a girl come and join in. Instead, the young girls remained guarded, as they would for the remainder of our stay, and though they did at some point venture out from behind their mothers, they would only point and giggle from a distance, and would very comically take off sprinting any time one of us would walk near them (they were always in small groups), or even look in their direction. But the girls' curiosity was indeed robust, perhaps more so than that of the young boys whose interest in us as people was eventually outdone by their interest in our things – our digital cameras, pocketknives, watches, and other modern effects. The girls though, would not leave us be. Anytime we went down to the water to bath or brush our teeth, we could see their smiling faces gawking at us from behind trees or through the bushes. When we ate, a wallpaper of gleaming eyes and teeth filled the interstices of the thatched hut. Like a team of spies they were. On that first evening, several hours after our arrival, we all noticed one particular group of girls, who from the start had been perhaps our most assiduous admirers, the oldest of whom couldn't have been more than 12, were now wearing all kinds of makeup – bright red lipstick, perhaps blush, the corner of their eyes elongated by a faint whisk of color, and their once barren arms and necks now cluttered with beads. If their dressing up was for our sake, I couldn't say, but to be sure, their coquettish behavior had a kind of beguiling charm, like that of a girlfriend's younger sister stealing innocent glances from across a dinner table and then offering you another scoop of ice-cream before her older sibling has time to act. (If that makes sense.)

Reliving the whole adventure now as I write this, our interactions with the young children, girls and boys alike, was probably the most gratifying of all we experienced. Whereas the children were at all times completely captivated by our presence, the adults, while observing with permanent smiles, were more subdued in their curiosity. But for an eager few, the older villagers would stand apart from our games, whether performing card tricks (a futile enterprise, I would learn, as the very cards themselves were magic enough), kicking around the ball, or the absolutely hilarious episode in which Donnelly assembled and conducted an entire orchestra of children to play various body instruments, of which the making-a-high-pitched-noise-while-banging-your-throat and the flicking-your-distended-cheek-to-make-a-teardrop-sound sections were my personal favorites. In spite of their very adultish reserve, there was one thing for which even the most stoic villager could not restrain his excitement. When we got the okay from Kong to break out our digital cameras we went from being merely sideshow oddities to center-stage magicians. It is probably impossible for anyone reading this to comprehend how those villagers might have understood the concept of digital photography. As far as I could tell, these people didn't even have mirrors (in the 4 villages we were at, and the 20 or so huts we were in, I never saw a single mirror). How then, could they possibly fathom an instrument that by the single click of a button has the capacity to arrest some moment in time, preserve that moment on a viewable screen, then store that image for later viewing, while also having the capacity to capture, display, and store a seemingly infinite number of successive moments? And it is a trivial thing then to even consider their reaction to our cameras' video-and-sound recording feature (if you presented an ancient Roman with an '73 Ford Pinto and a brand new Mustang, would he even know the difference, or care?). Though even from being there I have no greater insight into their thoughts about the cameras than you, what I can provide is a description of their outward reactions. They were at the same time entertained, confused, excited, and even horrified. Some of the villagers, even the older ones, would shrink from the camera lens as it panned the crowd, while others would clamber to be the centerpiece of every picture, while still others would jump in front of the lens for a split-second only to then dart sideways like an elusive matador. But no matter their conduct during the actual picture taking, they were all equally eager to catch a glimpse of the image as it showed on the display screen. As if the image itself wasn't enough, early on we learned that zooming in on each face and allowing them to see themselves and their friends close-up, was quite nearly a revelation, most certainly a cause for elated pleasure. Even after an hour of non-stop picture taking and viewing, even among the adults, the very profound fascination with the cameras did not dissipate one ounce. The entire village was completely absorbed. And it was only by the call of the dinner bell that we were finally able to take our cameras back inside.

For Thanksgiving dinner we ate boiled chicken and sticky-rice, were treated to several servings of their homemade rice whiskey concoction, and had the special delicacy of boiled eggs and ground chilies (what did you expect?). Though the food wasn't exactly the usual Thanksgiving fare (and by this point the sticky rice and boiled chicken were on the brink of being a loathsome sight), the whole day, as well as the very idea of the meal, managed to honor the spirit of the holiday in its own understated way. Maybe it's something that I've projected onto the occasion for my own sake, but the general theme of the native taking in and feeding the foreign outsider and thereby forging some understanding between the parties, and also providing the foundation for the possibility of some immutable goodwill, did cross my mind as a pretty decent way to make sense of our time there. And still does. It's a high-minded sentiment, and probably out of proportion considering our very brief stay and the unlikely incident that we will ever return, but our visit to that village is not without meaning. The circumstances of our arrival, the chance encounter of two distinctly alien peoples, not marred by political or economic incentive, but borne of a mutual humanity and no other pretense, was an occasion that the 4 of us will always relish, knowing well that our being there was a time of enjoyment and revelation for those villagers as well. To me that spells Thanksgiving as well as anything.

Again on the 3rd day, as on the 2nd, we woke early to our rooster alarm clocks, bid our gracious hosts adieux, blew some mock kisses to our female admirers, and began trekking before the sun could beat down on us in earnest. Though the terrain on the 3rd day was mostly flat and along the cool banks of the water, two of our group were battling some nasty stomach issues and we were all beset by the glum notion that the best of our trek had past, that our time at that last village was the apogee of a still very elevated experience, but that the remainder of our journey was just the long walk home. That would hardly be the case.

Our hike to the 3rd village was indeed a long one. But for a few stops along the way – 20 minutes for lunch (guess what we ate), 10 minutes to watch Donnelly throw up, 30 minutes for some swimming and some cave exploring (it was only after we had entered the cave that Kong casually mentioned that this particular spot was a known breeding ground for cobras, especially this time of year; thanks for the heads up, Kong), 20 minutes while Andy rather loudly and laboriously took refuge in some nearby bushes to spew his entire stomach out of his ass, 10 minutes for more vomiting, and a somewhat brief incident in which Donnelly stubbed his toe and in a boiling rage, exacerbated by his stomach problems, started breaking all kinds of branches and cursing violently at the world (hillllllarious) – the hike was a continuous 8 hour march. We made it to the next village at the onset of dusk. As a function of this village being closer to the Mekong (so we assumed), we were greeted with the same kind of reserved enthusiasm as on the 1st night. The utter fascination of our appearance that marked the 2nd day was lacking here. And as far as we were concerned, so much for the better. We were all exhausted and needed a nap desperately.

Our experience at the 3rd village was not essentially any different from our time in the other villages. The children were reluctant and then eager. The girls were passive but seemingly infatuated by our being there. The food consisted of boiled chicken and sticky rice. The villagers became suddenly animated and enthralled at the spectacle of our digital cameras. The adults were kind, though for the most part reserved...at least at the beginning. What made that 3rd village unique, and what made it worth the time to write about, was what happened after night had fallen, after the children had gone to bed, and the jar of whiskey appeared in the chief's hut.

You know that feeling you get sometimes, usually around 5pm on a Thursday or Saturday night, that certain itch, that premonition that it will not just be another night out, for some reason that bottle of J.D. starts to beckon like a siren on a rock-ridden shore, and though you won't admit it out loud you feel like dancing, or singing karaoke, or just losing it in whatever way shape or form presents itself? Well, apparently remote villages in the north of Laos are not impervious to that feeling either. As soon as we finished eating and that jar of whiskey was brought out from wherever it comes from, the impish urge to get drunk descended on that hut like a blitzkrieg. Fergus and I were the first to take to the straws. Between us we put down 10 cups with relative ease and were then immediately retained for 10 more. Stepping from the jar with a thorough 1st quarter buzz, we were each handed a huge Marley-esque spliff, the likes of which, we suddenly noticed, the majority of the hut's occupants were voraciously puffing away on. Even Donnelly and Andy, both infirmed by a stomach bug, could not resist the evening's infectious vibe. They, too, took to the whiskey in their turn, and though stopping short of where Mr. Donnelly is so capable of going, they both immediately perked up and joined the festivities. We, of course, were not the only ones drinking. For every 10 cups that Fergus and I drank, each of the diminutive men seemed to drink 10 on their own. The mood was ethereal and gregarious, and before long we were all talking loudly back and forth to each other in our own respective native tongues, which, in our drunken state, was totally immaterial. Who knows how these things get started but at some point the village chief started a sort of rhythmic clap, to which a few of the other men chimed in, and he then pointed at Donnelly, who was then informed by Kong that the chief wanted Ryan to sing some kind of song in rhythm with the clapping. Clearly at a loss, Ryan dug deep, and from some place in his psyche with a taste for the absurd, D busted out the full 2 minute version of Young M.C.'s Fastest Rhyme. Without time to properly digest what had just transpired, the chief next points at Andy, who is just utterly flummoxed at this point, and from sheer impulse he starts singing YMCA – the hand motions and everything. Good god, the comedy. Again, before there is time to think, the chief's finger is now on me, and after Fergus and I stumble through a few verses of Lodi Dodi, we both decide to just start dancing. And dance we did. Oh baby. We even gave them a little Robot for dessert (as if they have any clue what a robot is). The whole time this absolutely ludicrous talent show is taking place, the villagers are in a state of sheer amusement. They're all clapping and laughing and actually giving off the impression that they are genuinely impressed with our skills (actually, after listening to traditional Laotian music, I understand perfectly why they considered our offerings good). Eventually, after several more trips to the whiskey jar, a few more of those banana leaf spliffs, and a much-needed trigger-pull outside behind a tree, the long day of hiking caught up with me. Around 1am, the 4 of us called it a night and retired to our sleeping quarters while the villagers continued drinking and singing.

On the 4th day we beat the roosters to wake. We had to be back to the Mekong by 1pm to catch our boat to Luang Prabang. We had been warned repeatedly from our guides about this last day of hiking, that for the villagers it was 3 hours of severe uphill climbing and then 3 more going back down. The 4 of us could hope to do it in maybe 8 hours. We set off at 6am hoping to steal an hour by getting up the hill before it got too hot. Our guides' plan, for once, worked out. As it happened, the hiking on that last day was probably the easiest we had done. Though slightly hungover, the grueling haul that our guides made the day out to be simply never came to pass, and our hike was mostly carefree and light. We passed the time by playing trivia games and reflecting fondly on the highlights of the previous 3 days. With the exception of the sticky rice and boiled chicken, there was not a single bad thing to be said about our time.

We made it to the shore of the Mekong just in time to catch the boat. We were loaded on to the vessel which carried maybe 20 or so people, 4 goats on the roof, a very loud pig, some water buffalo, and about 500 pounds of various produce. This boat put the onion bus to shame. Crammed between a family and a smelly old man and sitting on top of a bag of sticks (really), I did my best to close my eyes and sleep. I couldn't. Along the way we slowed near the Phakoum caves, a very popular tourist spot for people staying in Luang Prabang, and as we did so, several tourists turned from the shore to watch our boat drift by. Nearly all of them simultaneously reached for their cameras and started pointing and taking pictures (I'm sure I would have too, those goats on the roof must have been something). I watched them as they laughed and snapped their photos and then I turned to look at the other people on our boat, their faces attentively turned forward and their once jovial expressions now stern. None of the Laotian people on our boat, I noticed, would face the cameras head on, but remained staring straight ahead, as if those onlookers didn't exist at all (and maybe they don't), until we were well out of eyesight. My disdain for tourists had never been stronger. This boat was just life, a thing so within the normal state of affairs, that if someone else on that boat, someone other than the 4 of us, that is, were writing this story it would hardly merit mentioning. And yet there we were, the center of a flurry of attention, the amusement of a set of outsiders who would never bother to consider who might feel the brunt of their laughter. I could see the ornate French architecture that characterizes Luang Prabang up ahead around the next turn. We were back.

Jungle Trekking Through Laos

2006-12-04T06:13:00.000-08:00

As my first post indicates, I've spent a good part of the last 6 months in search of something that is at the same time authentic and exclusively local. And as my first post also indicates, this desire has gone largely unfulfilled, as experiences that on paper promised to be awe-inspiring or better, have inevitably left me wanting.

When I arrived in Luang Prabang, the old capital city in the north of Laos, and was invited by two British acquaintances on a 4 day trek to the country's northwestern highlands, where, they beamed, we would be the first white people to visit a handful of minority villages, I was immediately skeptical. 'How credulous,' I thought, 'could these guys possibly be?' And anyway, the first white people to see these villages? even if it was true, what would that mean? Should I be thrilled about the prospect, or utterly horrified? Without committing to anything, I told them I might be interested in tagging along and to get back to me once the details had been settled. A few hours later Donnelly came to see me in the internet shop and with the same glowing enthusiasm as the Brits before him, pronounced that the Trek was officially a go; $80 a head for 4 days of backpacking through uncharted mountain range and the promise of being the first white-folk to step foot in any of several regional villages. Now, for those who don't know Mr. Donnelly, Ryan is a seasoned skeptic, a stone of a man, someone I have been lucky to stand behind in the grueling battle against the army of scammers, schemers, manipulators, and the battalions of smooth-talking tour guides that takes arms in this part of the world. So, if D was convinced, I was convinced. Convinced, at least, that the details of the trip were true. Our boat would leave the following morning at 8:30am. Pack your sneakers, a towel, a few extra shirts, and bring your game face.

I'd be lying though, if I didn't say that all along, until the moment actually arrived, I still had my doubts.

Day 1: The first day was just supposed to be one of acclimation, warming our muscles up to the long hikes, getting our shoulders used to the extra weight on our backs, getting a small taste of typical village life to whet our pallets for the more remote areas of the days ahead, sampling the scenery, getting to know the two guides, etc., all of it kicked off with a leisurely 5 hour boat ride west up the Mekong. Except for that last part, and a pleasant boat ride it was, there would be no time for acclimation. The 6 of us – Ryan, myself, the 2 Brits, Andy and Fergus, and the 2 guides, Kong and Gao – would be in the thick of it from the word go.

Stepping off the boat onto a sandbar-qua-village, we were greeted with some token hellos, a handful of odd-stares, and then rather briskly ushered by our guides to a footpath running adjacent to a small, bending creek and leading to god knows where. We walked heel-to-toe for several hours, the flat creek bed eventually giving way to steep and then very steep hills. The buffalo, the lone sling-shot toting child, the makeshift bamboo huts, the discarded wash rag, and all other outward signs of human life were soon far behind us. Laos northern wilderness is not the tropical jungle that blankets the south, but it's composed of the same steamy, verdant brushstrokes, and can be every bit as claustrophobic and threatening as the most uninviting terrain – cobras, wild cats, scorpions, leeches, and all. It was only a 4 day trek, and I knew as much going in, but once out there in the thick, I found it hard not to imagine myself in the shoes of some bygone notion of an adventurer, some intrepid 19th century French explorer donning a pith helmet, hacking at the brush with a machete, and traveling for the pure motive of discovery, of what or where as a distant afterthought.

After several hours of some intense hiking we came upon an abandoned hut with no godly reason for being where it stood. We were all tired by now, our neck muscles strung like taught wire, the two smokers among us wheezing to catch our breath, and our legs wobbling under our unnatural weight. It was just after 3pm. From our perch on the flatland of a dried out rice paddy, we watched the sun dip below the western ridgeline. The scene had a temporary analgesic effect, and we assumed that with darkness just an hour or so away that we couldn't be far from the first village and that we'd be sipping whiskey and grinding on some sticky-rice in no time. Our guides talked amongst themselves while we irreverently speculated on why any rational human-being would choose this place for a farm. We were happy for the rest and paid little mind to our guides' dialogue. But as their voices grew louder and their hand waving and head-shaking more confrontational, it soon became obvious that our guides had come upon a major disagreement in regards to our current location. It was getting darker. This was the 3rd time in our first day of trekking that we'd been forced to double-back on our initial route. The 4 travelers, though tired and more than a bit perturbed at our guides' latest fuckup, were still buoyed by the excitement of the idea of our adventure, and as the guides turned us around and informed us that we'd taken the completely wrong path and would have to return to the first village, we all puckered up and continued without caution.

We stumbled back near the initial riverside village and without any evident consideration of the waning daylight, started back up again along a new path, this one even heavier with undergrowth than the one we had come from and as steep as one could climb without crawling on all fours. It was nearly 5pm. The fireflies and night creatures were emerging from their daytime hideouts. Fergus was beginning to cramp and it was soon discovered that I was the only one with a flashlight, and it would be a few hours still until we learned that our guides had no better idea of where we were than we did. When it got dark at 6:30pm, dark enough that the guides could no longer hide the fact that they weren't entirely sure where we were going or how long it would take to get there, it was decided that I, with my flashlight, and Gao, 20 years old and on his first guided expedition since he'd left his village more than 2 years prior ("information that would've been helpful yesterday!"), would continue up the mountain and send help when and if we found the village we were looking for. All of a sudden the mood turned from jovial to somber. The thought that we might be resigned to spending the night huddled together on a mountainside in northern Laos, was sort of, well, unappealing. Kong, the older and more experienced of the two guides, who at the beginning of the trip was a stalwart of optimism, admitted that he had never done this trek before, that he was as lost as the rest of us, and that if it was up to him we would turn around once again and return to the Mekong where things were safe and familiar. So much for inauthentic.

Gao and I soldiered upward. Poor Gao. On the first day of his first professional guide he had fucked up 3 times in broad daylight and now had us all scrambling in the pitch dark. Surely in an attempt to prove himself worthy to his new boss, Gao had insisted on carrying all the group's extra supplies, but after 6 hours of traversing the unforgiving mountainside, Gao's tiny frame was finally giving way to this heavy burden. After roughly 40 minutes of Gao and I hiking together, the guy collapsed to the ground. "I am not a man," he kept saying. "You all think I am just a boy because I am so small and I make mistake." As he tried to catch his breath, I fed Gao some crackers and let him vent, trying not to laugh. "They will be so angry. It is my fault. Do not be angry, Mr. Jo. I am sorry." I tried to offer Gao words of encouragement. "It's cool, Gao. No problem. Once we all get to the village, no one will even remember all this." After Gao promised to have me for dinner and to meet his family (one of those, 'if we ever make it outta here alive' things, that is now quite hilarious, but at the time was sort of moving), we switched packs and kept climbing. It would be another hour of the steepest hiking we had endured to date, and several more stops in which Gao reiterated his failure to be a man, until the path would flatten out and the sweet stench of buffalo shit would indicate that we had finally reached the village.

Meanwhile, down at the rest point where Gao and I had left the the group hours earlier, things were getting desperate. Kong was completely flustered and couldn't decide whether to stay put, turn around, or marshal his boys up the mountain and just hope that they would find the village. Fergus was a mess, cramping up every few meters they attempted to hike. Andy, a Scotsman, and Donnelly, an Irishman, would have been totally fine just building a fire and spending the night where they lay, but to their near horror they realized that all the whiskey was in Gao's supply pack. Motivated by the booze as much as anything, the 4 of them crawled slowly upward, guided by a torch fashioned from Kong's rubber flip-flop and around 8:45pm they were intercepted by a search party Gao had sent down from the village.

By 9:30pm the 6 of us were reunited in the village elder's hut, laughing at what had just transpired. Already full from my supper of rat soup (seriously, I wish I was joking), I just grazed on some sticky rice as the others devoured their feast of boiled chicken. We were all much too tired and wrapped up in our own day's odyssey to notice that at some point the whole village had congregated outside of the hut and were taking turns peering into the doorway at the large, loud, laughing "farangs". After eating, a few of the village's young men offered us some of their rice-wine, a kind of semi-sweet whiskey made from fermented rice and cantaloupe-ish melon, a drink we would become all to familiar with over the next few days. The concoction is served from a huge communal clay jar, over which drinkers, 2 or 3 at a time, kneel and imbibe from very long, thin bamboo straws. Each serving consist of anywhere from 3-10 cups per drinker and once the drinking commences there is no rest, just continuous sucking. It's something like taking a keg-stand with sake. These guys are serious about their booze. We drank for a while, some of us longer than others, but we were all soon bedded on the bamboo floor, and despite the discomfort, all fast asleep. The next morning we would wake early to find throngs of children climbing over each other in the doorway, trying to get a peak at the hairy, white, giants that lay sleeping before them. We had finally arrived.

Coming To Terms

2006-11-29T05:56:00.000-08:00

Let me first preface these pages with why I've suddenly felt compelled to sit here in the near dark, in my hotel room in Luang Prabang, over six months after this journey first began, and write what amounts to an impetuous retelling of the significant events of that period and also to devote myself to as much going forward. Actually, and as testimony to this impetuousness, except for what transpired over the last several days, an inspiring 4 day trek through mountain villages in northern Laos, and the likely here-and-again reference to certain salient things past, I'll try to eschew my foregoing experiences as they are already dulled by time, and, crucially, informed only by the faulty perspective that has plagued my understanding of these travels for so long. What my initial perspective was, and why it so inadequately resulted in any meaningful commentary, and also what has since changed, is the purpose of this preface to address. Admittedly, there is nothing profound at stake here, nothing epiphanous or fundamentally transformative, just the clarification of a more sharpened vantage point, forged by a long period of slow-grinding denial. Like I've said, this is nothing more than a quick insight into a particular point of view, but I've come to realize that this point of view is pretty important for why and how I talk about what comes afterward.

For most of this trip, I've been keeping a journal of events, organized by location, and written in the terse, ungrammatical, and bear-bones style of an essay outline. To get some idea of the insipid nature of these entries, here's a few examples:

Mainz: 6/5 - 6/12
- england 1 v. paraguay 0 (1st round of World Cup) Frankfurt, screen in middle of Main river. rabid, shirtless, sunburnt, drunk, orthodonticly challenged, heavily tattooed brits everywhere. Lovely.
- Beer towers

Prague 6/30 - 7/15
- Seifert Hotel on Konevova in Prague 10 (Zizkov). Horridly small and hot room on 1st floor. The heat box. across from Cinska Restaurace (great chow fun). free breakfast inclusive of cereal, coffee, hard-boiled eggs (fried or scrambled to order), juice, apples, kiwis, oranges, pastries, hot dogs, cheese platter, cold-cut platter, toast, yoghurt, etc.
-Incredible beer. Budvar! (sic), Staropremen. Pilsner Urquell.
-crazy TV tower in Zizkov
-Kutna Hora. Ossuary. Bone church. Aaaaa, bones. Hour bus ride for $1 (35 czech crown)
- very good looking but sullen women. always look upset. lingering soviet angst?
-met Andre Tolstoy, descendant of Leo, son of Radio Free Europe co-founder

Sihanoukville 9/21 – 9/28
-Sleepy beach town on Cambodia's SW coast. Gulf of Siam. Still nascent tourist scene. Mostly Asian, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, etc. flock to Occhuetal Beach, a long narrow expanse on SW edge of city.
-Victory Beach/Monument Hill, where D and I stayed, soon to be backpacker haven. Stay at Mash Guesthouse run by senile German lady and occupied by her two British bulldogs, Elvis and Deepthroat. Deepthroat will soon be birthing Cambodia's first ever litter of pure breed Brit Bulldogs (according to proprietor). Old lady also tries recruiting me (knowing about my Google job and presuming that i have some useful computer skills) to help her and some unnamed group crack a local pedophilia ring. The details are all very sketchy and she's drunk throughout the entire pitch, but it's nonetheless intriguing. She was quite a weirdo.

Mui Ne 10/13 – 10/14
-Real quiet beach town in south-central Vietnam that could've had its first hotel built yesterday with the first tourists arriving just hours ago. We rent scooters and go to big white sand dunes with some kids and see a gorgeous lake and enjoy some of the finest landscape anywhere. It looks almost like the coast of Baja California but the wet, jungle air gives the colors a more pronounced glow than Baja's desert fade, like the enhanced effect of a high-def LCD screen.

Yet, despite a gradual progression in substance of these entries, my record of events has remained scant and merely perfunctory, driven by the same pathetic sense of duty that has seen me through entirely unsatisfying excursions to countless temples, UNESCO World Heritage sights, and other "must sees", like Halong Bay and Angkor Wat to name a few, that litter the guide books and are the bread and butter for local tour agencies. These trips invariably result in utter disappointment, or worse, guilt-ridden self-reproach when the realization occurs that you are no more than a photo-snapping interloper whose insistence on participation in someone else's life and culture, ushered into that world only for the sake of your money, is a very grotesque thing indeed. Which is to say that at times being a tourist can be a hellish experience, both for the tourist and the native (whether that native be human, or otherwise sacred for its own reasons). And when it comes down to writing or even thinking about these experiences, it's easiest to simply discredit them on their own merit rather than consider that your disappointment is mostly a function of your very presence there, of your consumption, and same of the masses like you. Of course, the easiest way to deal with any instance in which self-criticism is ultimately necessary but bound to be difficult and possibly ugly, is to simply avoid that moment altogether. Which is what I have heretofore done. But it is this, my role as exploiter in the tourism game, which I've so reluctantly allowed myself to acknowledge, that I've now finally come to terms with. I'll try to explain further.

There is a defilement that occurs when the tourist and the native make contact, and the narrower and more severe the interests of the parties involved (money in the case of the native, access to something private for the tourist) the greater this defilement. How and when this relationship goes from mutually agreeable to exploitative, is proportional to the inequalities of the two parties involved, highlighted by things like money, culture (particularly language), education, and opportunity (or lack of it). This is why, for example, there is no pang of guilt when a German ventures to the Place Georges Pompidou in Paris, and lingers and listen as he pleases, with no intent to spend money, with no intent to engage or forge an understanding with the locals, and the street musicians will still play, the mimes will mime, and no resentment will be had. The street musicians do not congregate outside the Place Georges Pompidou because of the tourists, to please them or have their money, but because of something genuinely and exclusively Parisian (compare this to the "artists" at Place du Tertre who are of the same esurient, campy ilk as Patpong's ladyboys, who respectively can make lunch in Montmartre or a night out in Bangkok a veritable nightmare). As the inequalities between tourist and native grow more and more stark, and their interests more acute, tourism starts to become dishonest and intrusive. This unnerving thought first surfaced in the Czech Republic, intensified in Turkey, grew yet stronger as I made may way east through Asia, and finally in Laos has come to a head and been made painfully clear.

If a street entertainer in, say, Phnom Penh, performs outside of the restaurant you happen to be eating in, it is absolutely out of the question not to contribute when he canvasses the tables with his tip jar. Big deal. What is twenty cents? But there are deeper, psychological implications to this obligation.

As implied above, when traveling as an American tourist domestically, or to Europe, or Canada or, I imagine, to Australia, where economic and cultural differences are negligible, tourism, though often crass and possibly degrading, is not exploitative. But in places like Southeast Asia, where I've spent the last 4 months and will remain for countless more, tourism becomes a kind of prostitution. Prostitution, like tourism, is most often provided by the poor and option-less for whom the plain economics of their service trumps any moral reluctance, and received by a customer who is aware that what he's getting is inauthentic but participates anyway because in a visceral, non-intellectual way the genuineness of the article is moot. And simply because he can. As distances of wealth between tourist and native are stretched further, tourism's likeness to prostitution is amplified. In fact, in Southeast Asia and the former Eastern Bloc, where the disparity between the interests of the tourist and the native is most pronounced, the inextricable nature of prostitution and tourism has spawned a whole sub-genre of tourism, brusquely termed "sex tourism", which now predominates in these countries, and which, I would argue, is not a sub-genre of tourism at all but just sheds the pretensions of the larger aspect and gets right down to the heart of the matter. That when tourism can no longer even attempt to stand on the notion that both tourists and native have a shared interest, the true nature of the act is made apparent. And for a Westerner particularly, the great lure of a place like Bangkok over a place like Kiev (where you might go to buy a wife) is that economic disparity is augmented by exotic and even deviant cultural norms. We might call this "fetish tourism".

For obvious reasons, in this part of the world, tourism's very entrenched, if tacit, likeness to prostitution creates a host of very thorny moral issues that most tourists simply neglect, and others, like my former self, attend to with a nasty blend of self-righteousness and entitlement (and neglect, too, when it's convenient). Those who neglect this intrinsically exploitive relationship, or those who recognize it and just don't care (maybe the high-ground here, that tourism is what it is and everyone knows the rules going in and so be it), have the special luxury of guiltlessness that the second set of tourist will never honestly attain. For those who even subconsciously sense that their being here is something less than innocent, experiences are often sullied by this knowledge and the whole routine of going from this place to that, of seeing one famous landmark after another, of sampling local cuisine at local markets, of buying handfuls of local trinkets, can become as much a burden as a pleasure.

But the conscientious tourist is not without defense. To hedge the guilt of our enterprise, it is a common refrain amongst tourists who recognize the exploitive nature of their travel, particularly of the young, well-educated cast, which this particular area of the world seems to attract an inordinate amount, that a distinction can be made between tourist and traveler, that tourism is one thing and traveling something else entirely – a sentiment that is usually just expressed with the heedless, "isn't it obvious" tone of a holy-book quoter. The person who makes this comment, will subsequently observe two frat-boyish looking knuckleheads pounding beer cans and discarding cigarette butts onto an already polluted and over-crowded stretch of beach and sort of shake his head and shrug, as if to say, "See what I mean?" Then he'll make a casual reference to his dread-locked, tattooed self – the traveler to the frat-boys' tourist – and affectionately reminisce that it was just 3 years ago, before it showed up in The Lonely Planet, that he could spend all day on this beach and not see another "farang". This kind of self-righteous diatribe is, of course, laughable. Though, in order to hedge my own argument that the hundreds of thousands of traveler's, ex-pats, vacationers, Peace Corpsman, etc. are all just tourists of the type described above, it's my firm opinion that being a tourist isn't necessarily bad or malevolent, but that it can be, and often is. Tourists, particularly of the Peace Corps variety and the like, where the scope of interest goes well beyond monetary gain for the native and shameless voyeurism for the tourist, provide each other with invaluable access to other worlds, cultures, ideas, and perspectives. But even for the Peace Corpsman who spends 2 years in rural Cambodia teaching English, what is the ultimate gain for those people he teaches? Money, right? And what does the Corpsman get in return? A contrived point of access into an otherwise private environment. This analysis, I think, is perhaps a bit cynical, and I'd have a hard time accusing a Peace Corpsman of being exploitative, but ultimately he is just like the rest of us. His is an invasive relationship in which one party, because of economic necessity, has no choice but to accept it on the other's terms. And this example also reveals where the potent admixture of self-righteousness and entitlement takes hold. The Corpsman can easily justify his action because of the "goodness" of his deed, while his counterpart lacks the economic leverage to question this. Whether or not it's a "good" thing for well-educated Westerners to encroach on native populations with what are certainly large-hearted intentions and to provide services that are generally accepted with enthusiasm and unequivocal gratitude is not my purpose to answer. What I only mean to say is that if for reasons of cultural preservation, preference of self-reliance, or whatever, certain elements of the native population do not think that modern irrigation systems or English language classes are a "good" thing, they are not formally entitled to say so. It is my firm opinion that unless a person, traveling for the sake of pleasure, or to perform a "good" deed, or for the sake of travel itself, is willing to come to a place like Southeast Asia, and completely immerse herself in the local way of life – learn the language, share the customs, experience the poverty – some degree of exploitation is inescapable. And it is this that I've come to accept.

Okay, so I'm a john, if in a more metaphorical, less vulgar way than one who pays for sex; though, the psychological consequences are the same. Finally coming to grips with as much has been a liberating experience. And there are three paths to walk at this point: I could desperately cling to some moral imperative, turn my back on this world, and return to more familiar surroundings. Or, I could do as I mentioned above, immerse myself in a local scene and be resigned to drab asceticism. Or, what I've chosen, do my best to accept the situation for what it is, to not dwell on moral concerns, to sympathize but not pity the penniless native, and if I'm to pay for the consumption of something private, to at least pay fairly. There is also the simple and universal approach of just trying to be a nice person – practicing patience, overlooking rude service, staying level-headed when a bus is late or a moto-driver steers you miles from your intended destination, not being cheap, keeping the voyeurism (the constant photo-snapping especially) to a minimum, and, I think most importantly, taking every opportunity to get to know the locals, share with them your life and letting them share theirs, beyond whatever economic trade-off precedes the relationship. But lastly, what I can't forget is that my presence here isn't innocent or neutral, and at the end of the day, I am no different than the beer-can crushing, cigarette tossing meatheads, or the hippy cheese-dick out to blame everyone else, or even the fanny-packing old woman who thinks that not getting free and prompt refills on her 20 cent cup of coffee is indicative of why these people will never be successful at business. From now on I'll just try to be a little more conscious of it.