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.