Talking Heads - Mind

Time won't change you
Money won't change you
I haven't got the faintest idea
Everything seems to be up in the air at this time
I need something you change your mind
Drugs won't change you
Religion won't change you
Science won't change you
Looks like I can't change you
I try to talk to you, to make things clear
but you're not even listening to me...
And it comes directly from my heart to you...

bad news

Last night in the shower I realized not only that I can't name a single player on the Steelers, I can't name a current professional football player on any team.

November, more or less

after the personality test and the mental illness test, i naturally took the dating test

Your dating personality profile: Liberal - Politics matters to you, and you aren't afraid to share your left-leaning views. You would never be caught voting for a conservative candidate. Practical - You are a down-to-earth individual who is not impressed with material excess. You care about the stuff of like that really matters. Big-Hearted - You are a kind and caring person. Your warmth is inviting, and your heart is a wellspring of love.

Your Top Ten Traits 1. Liberal 2. Practical 3. Big-Hearted 4. Adventurous 5. Intellectual 6. Athletic 7. Shy 8. Stylish 9. Sensual 10. Wealthy/Ambitious

Your date match profile: Shy - You are put off by people who are open books. You are drawn to someone who is a bit more mysterious. You want to draw her out of her shell and get to know what she is all about. Practical - You are drawn to people who are sensible and smart. Flashy, materialistic people turn you off. You appreciate the simpler side of living. Intellectual - You seek out intelligence. Idle chit-chat is not what you are after. You prefer your date who can stimulate your mind.

Your Top Ten Match Traits 1. Shy 2. Practical 3. Intellectual 4. Big-Hearted 5. Traditional 6. Adventurous 7. Athletic 8. Stylish 9. Romantic 10. Funny

Take the Dating Profile Quiz at Would I Date You

I just have to say that the two biggest surprises here are: 1) "Liberal" being my number one trait, and 2) "Funny" being the least important trait of whomever I date. By the way I'm an INTJ personality.

a steady part of my current diet

I'll admit that I intentionally side step a lot of what I deem mainstream pop culture. I don't want to be mainstream, as silly as that might sound, but I have to say that the Saturday Night Live election skits have certainly made me giggle.

1st presidential debate

2nd presidential debate

1st vice-presidential debate

Italian friends on the mind

I'm thinking more and more about getting over to Italy for a short visit next summer (hopefully the $ will still be worth something by then). Despite the fact that ever since my last visit I've been pretty set on going down into Southern Italy, I can't help but think about how much I want to see the folks I learned to care so much about up north. I can't really go off about all the people I'd like to visit, but I can show you some of the beauty of the Dolomites that the Marcellins insisted I enjoy when I spent the summer of 2005 in Italy. I also feel like their enthusiasm for treating me as family is fairly representative of all my dear friends I want to visit.

Paolo pointing out a trail he hiked in his youth.

Gorgeous.

Paolo, Giovanna, Susanna and Fillipo

Who knows if I'll actually make it back or where I'll end up if I do. Just the same, here's to hoping.

Dialogo della Terra e della Luna (Dialogue between the Earth and Moon) by Giacomo Leopardi

The Earth and the Moon discuss the nature of their peoples and manage, after numerous misunderstandings, to come to a few conclusions. (English translation by Giovanni Cecchetti found below the Italian.)

Terra. Almeno mi saprai tu dire se costì sono in uso i vizi, i misfatti, gl'infortuni, i dolori, la vecchiezza, in conclusione i mali? intendi tu questi nomi?
Luna. Oh cotesti sì che gl'intendo; e non solo i nomi, ma le cose significate, le conosco a maraviglia: perché ne sono tutta piena, in vece di quelle altre che tu credevi.
Terra. Quali prevalgono ne' tuoi popoli, i pregi o i difetti?
Luna. I difetti di gran lunga.
Terra. Di quali hai maggior copia, di beni o di mali?
Luna. Di mali senza comparazione.
Terra. E generalmente gli abitatori tuoi sono felici o infelici?
Luna. Tanto infelici, che io non mi scambierei col più fortunato di loro.
Terra. Il medesimo è qui. Di modo che io mi maraviglio come essendomi sì diversa nelle altre cose, in questa mi sei conforme.
Luna. Anche nella figura, e nell'aggirarmi, e nell'essere illustrata dal sole io ti sono conforme; e non è maggior maraviglia quella che questa: perché il male è cosa comune a tutti i pianeti dell'universo, o almeno di questo mondo solare, come la rotondità e le altre condizioni che ho detto, né più né meno. E se tu potessi levare tanto alto la voce, che fossi udita da Urano o da Saturno, o da qualunque altro pianeta del nostro mondo; e gl'interrogassi se in loro abbia luogo l'infelicità, e se i beni prevagliano o cedano ai mali; ciascuno ti risponderebbe come ho fatto io. Dico questo per aver dimandato delle medesime cose Venere e Mercurio, ai quali pianeti di quando in quando io mi trovo più vicina di te; come anche ne ho chiesto ad alcune comete che mi sono passate dappresso: e tutti mi hanno risposto come ho detto. E penso che il sole medesimo, e ciascuna stella risponderebbero altrettanto.
Terra. Con tutto cotesto io spero bene: e oggi massimamente, gli uomini mi promettono per l'avvenire molte felicità.
Luna. Spera a tuo senno: e io ti prometto che potrai sperare in eterno.
Terra. Sai che è? questi uomini e queste bestie si mettono a romore: perché dalla parte della quale io ti favello, è notte, come tu vedi, o piuttosto non vedi; sicché tutti dormivano; e allo strepito che noi facciamo parlando, si destano con gran paura.
Luna. Ma qui da questa parte, come tu vedi, è giorno.
Terra. Ora io non voglio essere causa di spaventare la mia gente, e di rompere loro il sonno, che è il maggior bene che abbiano. Però ci riparleremo in altro tempo. Addio dunque; buon giorno.
Luna. Addio; buona notte.

~ ~ ~

Earth. At least you can tell me if up there people are acquainted with vice, crime, calamity, pain, old age - in short, evils. So you understand these words?
Moon. Oh yes. I surely understand them. And not only the words but the things they mean; I know them perfectly well, for I am filled with them - rather than with the other things you mentioned.
Earth. What are more prevalent among your people, virtues or vices?
Moon. Vices by far.
Earth. What is more abundant, good or evil?
Moon. Evil, without comparison.
Earth. And, in general, your inhabitants are happy or unhappy?
Moon. So unhappy that I wouldn't change places with the most fortunate of them.
Earth. It's the same here. So much so that it is a great surprise how similar you are to me in this, whereas you are so different in everything else.
Moon. I am also similar to you in form, and in movement, and in receiving light from the sun, and this is no less surprising than the rest because evil is something common to all the planets of the universe or at least of this solar system - just as much as roundness and the other conditions I have mentioned. If you could raise your voice so high that it could be heard by Uranus or Saturn, or by any other planet of our world, and if you could ask them whether unhappiness exists on them and whether good or evil prevails among them, each would answer in the same way I have. I say this because I have already asked Venus and Mercury about the same things, for now and then I find myself closer to them than you. I have also asked some of the comets that have passed by me. All have answered in the same way as I have. And I believe that the sun himself, and every star, would give the same answer.
Earth. In spite of all this, I am still hopeful, especially nowadays, when men are promising me great future happiness.
Moon. Hope as much as you like; I assure you that you can hope forever.
Earth. Do you know what's going on? These men and these animals are beginning to stir and make noise. On the side from which I'm talking to you, it is night, as you can see, or rather, as you can't see; and so they were all asleep, and at the commotion that we are making while we talk, they are waking up with great fear.
Moon. But up here, as you can see, it is daytime.
Earth. I don't want to frighten my people or to shatter their sleep, which is the greatest blessing they have. So we'll talk again some other time. Goodbye, then; and good day.
Moon. Goodbye; and good night.

some brothers

Laotian monastery

So Sonic Youth just signed to Matador Records which is kind of cool news, but really I just wanted to post this picture of SY that I picked up from their facebook page. This is from back in the days of 1985 when they were on Homestead and Blast First. If only I had been a little older than three at the time, you know?

today's scare

I'm not really one for politics but I just spent the last hour or so watching news clips of Sarah Palin in interviews ans giving speeches and such, and I must say that THIS WOMAN FREAKS ME OUT. The thought of her in a position of power anywhere, Alaska or Washington D.C., makes me deeply uncomfortable. Listen to her explain herself and her political intentions and see what crosses your mind.

Zion's National Park

Teacher Jim

I met Jim in Zhuhai, China, where we went through a month long TEFL course together. Following the course I went down to Thailand and met up with him again in his previously established realm of influence, which he generously shared. He then returned to China for work and I returned some time for play. I think he's still sifting through the teaching opportunities, but here you see him at his 9 pm English hour at the now defunct Sansook Place in Thailand and have a good time wading through the sewage-y floodwaters of Yangshuo, China. Perhaps those were the days.

leather could hardly look better

China flashback #3

So you've seen this picture before on facebook and now you see it here. I think this image of me and Meili Mt. (6,740 m or 22,107 ft) sits deep in my heart for the fact that it a) documents me at the highest altitude I've ever set foot on, b) captures my neck in it's hairiest glory, and c) shows me in a happy state, refreshed by a taste of snow and ice after months of Southeast Asia jungle.

My detour down to Oklahoma satisfied the way only Oklahoma can. I got to meet up with Hillary in her native environment and make her do stuff like walk around the cemetery just outside of Mannford looking for Lee Hazlewood, snoop around a little oil well, and go have dinner at Shortcakes with the increasingly celebrated McFarlins. It sure was nice to see Lee and Diane again four years after they so eagerly lead Laura and me into the waters of Lake Carl Blackwell and the world of noodling. If you're wondering what Lee's been up to or what he's up to now, here are a couple of links that might interest you.

http://www.okienoodling.com/okienoodling2/index.html

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=368428329

China flashback #2

I don't know much about what was going on. I know I was headed south and they encouraged me to wait for the bus with them. I know I had to pose with them in various photographs. I know that when I came out of the supermarket with my breakfast we witnessed a small car accident. I remember the kid with the cigarette disappeared for a time and then returned with a taxi van. I'm sure it wasn't long after we loaded into the vehicle that our driver was confronted by an officer of the law, and at that point he drove us all over to the police station. We never saw that driver again. I'm certain these kids dictated some kind of statement while I wondered back and forth from the taxi and the office where all this was taking place several times over a period of a long time. I recall getting into the front passenger seat a policeman's car and being driven down to the dock along the Mekong River. At one point I asked if we were going to a particular city and got shushed by the youngsters. As soon as the officer had driven away from the dock we all hurried into another taxi and left the river with the speed of thieves. I know we were pretty uncomfortable packed in this new taxi and the fighting cock was taking up more space than that one woman would have liked. We definitely sang along to "Yesterday Once More" three and half times. And the taxi sure didn't take us all the way to where I wanted to go.

Blind

"And if you saw with my eyes, you'd see what self-deception means."

Wonderfully brutal lyrics by Michael Gira.

signs along the way

Things got strange once I hit Kansas - strange for me anyway. I began seeing signs for things that I hadn't been exposed to before. If I had to judge from the signs and billboards posted along I-70 I'd say the folks in Kansas care a lot about getting you saved in the Kingdom of God and making sure all fetuses get there too. It's not a bad goal, really. The folks in Oklahoma must have a tendency to fish off highway bridges. The Missourians have placed a lot of adult shops along the freeway, but I'd never go in them. One billboard had a picture indicating wheelchair access and I couldn't help but think of shopping in such a place with Gramma 'n Grampa. Then there was the "UP TO 6XL" that troubled me deeply. For the life of me I couldn't imagine what someone wearing a garment that large would look like, and I hope real life never forces me to find out. Missouri also marked the real beginning of innumerable displays of Waffle House advertising. But my favorite sign was a road sign in Pennsylvania that read

"Buckle up
next million miles!"

Since when did we put so much attitude in our road signs?

My few days on Maui have provided amble opportunities to converse with various self-proclaimed hippies. I really learned a lot from them and look forward to future contact with their kind.

Calvin, a man claiming to be the offspring of Def Leppard, when talking about the Oklahoma City bombing remembered things like this: "What was that dude's name again? Deuchebag McDeuchebag? Wayne, man, do you got any herb, bro?" Here on Maui there are a lot of bros. There are also a lot of puka shells.

John, a 51-year-old swinging by the end of his rope, made this comment upon seeing two fairly attractive girls walking on the beach: "Listen, Wayne, you really gotta get yourself a B-otch - I like saying B-otch, it just makes sense." And right now you're wondering "was he saying 'B-otch' or the other word?" and, as it turns out, he was saying B-otch, otherwise it wouldn't make sense.

i definitely wish i was this elephant, at least then i'd understand two more things than i understand right now: people and the future

traveling space and time

Flying long distance on an airplane can leave a kid like me a little disoriented. Maybe it's the meals served at odd hours, maybe it's the seeming sterility of the plane's interior, maybe it's the awful films they play, or maybe it's the plane's ability to break out of the terrestrial headlock, provide staff that can ask me if I want coffee in more languages than I can understand, and then deposit me somewhere in a previously seen hour.

http://www.okienoodling.com/okienoodling2/press.html

When I left for Asia many of my family and friends inquired as to my intentions with the women of Asia. Are you going to bring back a wife? they would ask.

As I'm preparing to leave Thailand for the States I am surprised to find I'm often asked, mostly by middle aged Thai women, whether or not I'll be taking my Thai girlfriend home with me.

I suppose I could.

china flashback #1

muslim chinese food (featured on the green board in the upper lefthand corner) could be the best in all of china. so there i was looking forward to eating some when this yung fellow whips out his phone - a phone twinkling with more blinking lights than even LAX probably - selects a song, turns the volume up to "ridiculously loud and distorted," takes a drag on his cigarette, and then bursts forth in what i understood to be completely sincere, heartfelt song. i thought he might be crying. no one else in the restaurant seemed to notice or care.

body hair pt. II

My trip from Vang Vieng down to Vientiane took place in the back of a crowed truck, but two men up near the cab weren't being crowded. I'm not sure why, but a young lady sitting next to them was really pushing the lady sitting between us hard up against me and I was trying to subtly push back because to the other side of me was a fellow with no legs and I figured he'd probably had enough of being crowed to last a handful of lifetimes. The lady getting sandwiched eventually ended up preferring the bed of the truck, where she sat hunched over a barf bag, and within seconds the younger lady who was doing all the pushing ended up scooting right up next to me making the gap between her and the men even more painfully obvious.

I don't really know what to say except that when the young lady got off at her stop I ended up next to the men, who both took turns touching my arm and leg hair.

proud to be an American?

cluster bombs + Lao PDR

http://www.itvs.org/bombies/story.html
http://www.maginternational.org/MAG/en/where-we-work/where-mag-works/lao-pdr/

My brother just posted 5 essential albums on his blog. I was pleased to see Lee Hazlewood had a spot. This is a picture of Stuart A. Staples, the living expression of Lee's sad side. He sings sad songs to make us happy, because human beings really enjoy sadness.

cursed be the man who introduced plastic to asia

This is the fine young gentleman who sold me a camera today. Now I just have to try not to sweat on it too much or drop it in the drink.

Rompiendo la monotonia del tiempo

It might... it might rain money
It might... it might rain fire
Now Im gonna call... gonna call on Legba.

According to recent revelations my life just might be in order. What I'm talking about is the tarot card reading I got from Sharon, my new fruitivour Kiwi friend I met in Pattaya, and the result of a study on car color and personality recently featured on Yahoo News. The cards told of my current state of equilibrium and foretold of my eventual run in with some money. There was also a love card and a fertility card in there. I can't wait. The study mentioned that owners of silver cars are the second most stable Americans you can find, enjoying something like 1.3% more personal stability than the average American. Only folks with dark blue cars, I think it was, supersede us kids with silver ones. My feelings on that are these: American's must be pretty messed up if I'm better than average. In any event, while I wait for my future fortune, I have some Talking Heads to listen to.

You'll be a magnet for money
You'll be a magnet for love
You'll feel light in your body.
- "Papa Legba"

Feathers in the cap

I like to imagine that the long good luck hairs sprouting from some men's moles are the feathers of a tranquillizer dart, or maybe the tail feathers of a very small rooster pheasant nestled just below the skin.

Stop and stare

At mealtime in China I could often catch the Chinese watching with fascination as I ate with chopsticks. In Thailand folks stare at my arms in awe of my arm hair.

Laotian mud flap

In a part of the world where women's fashion gets high marks only if it features Micky, Mini, Pooh Bear, or a Playboy logo one would expect the mud flap fashion to consist of Taz, Yosemite Sam and the female silhouette. Truth is you won't find any of that, but you'll find plenty of mud flaps featuring Al Pacino as Frank Serpico. The top of the flap reads "SERPICO" while the bottom reads "HERO." I'd like to know if these same mud flaps were popular in the US back in mid-'70s and have since been shipped over Asia-way.

Sometimes I find I get to thinking of the past.
We swore to each other then that our love would surely last.
You kept right on loving, I went on a fast,
now I am too thin and your love is too vast.
But I know from your eyes
and I know from your smile
that tonight will be fine,
will be fine, will be fine, will be fine...
for a while.
~ Leonard Cohen "Tonight Will Be Fine"

Today as I prepared my backpack for my trip to Laos I decided to leaved my music behind me which means I'll be doing without my prefered tunes for the first time in 4.5 years. This could last as long as a month, and that's a long time.

2007 saw the end of two of my heroes: one of Italy's most impressive directors ever, Michelangelo Antonioni, and, not even one week later, one of America's quirkiest country songwriters, Lee Hazlewood.

My big disappointment in Alaska

From late August to late September I watched the salmon spawning in Pullen Creek die off a few at a time - a sign that my time as a seasonal worker was also coming to an end. But watching the salmon was as passive as simply watching the big clock on the wall at work ticking steadily forward to 5 pm. A felt a sense of competition with the fish as if we were in some kind of race, or maybe it was a competition with Father Time himself, embodied in the fish. I'm not sure what I could have possibly gained from winning the race - I wasn't going to get paid overtime for it - but I wanted to last long enough to see Pullen Creek devoid of living salmon. Everyday as I hurried over the bridge to and from work I would quickly count up the remaining fish and feel ahead whenever the numbers had dropped, until finally there was just one fish left in the river. One silly salmon that swam in place hour after hour, day after day. After about four or five days I expected it to be dead and for me receive my reward, but alas it lived on. Some times I'd stand on the foot bridge and watch its tail stop moving and the current would push the fish back down towards the mouth of the creek, but then life would come back into the tail and the fish would regain its ground. I'd note its skin being stripped from its body a bit everyday and think "It hasn't got long. Maybe it'll be gone this afternoon." After a couple of weeks I began wondering if this was the same fish or if a new one had accepted the baton and took over the race. Weeks past. My time to leave Skagway arrived. I made one last trip to the bus yard to fill out my time card. And check on the salmon.