May 03, 2010
How Alcatraz Went Down...
There's something I tell people who ask me why I do what I do, or when I try to explain motivation for something like this: In the morning, when the alarm clock goes off, no matter how trained you are, there's always a faint second where you contemplate turning off the lights and going back to bed...because you know how much fight and sweat and blood is going to be waiting for you that day. Then you don't. Then you go out there and compete, and compete well...and I can say this with full assurance, that I am going to bed absolutely a better man right now than I was this morning. And these merits don't wear off. These fights like the one I picked this morning will stay with me for the rest of my life, and until you do one, you can never know. Not for everyone and everyone's got to find their own thing...but this is mine.
May 09, 2010
My Conversation With A Stripper At The Vegas Rhino...
I'm not like the boys here. I don't pay.
I'm not like the girls here. And here we are.
You're incredible...but I'm just here to wing someone.
You keep saying that.
Because I don't want you to waste your time.
You keep saying that.
I know.
So stop saying it.
Okay.
You've cost me a thousand dollars. You understand, right?
That's why I'm telling you to leave me alone.
But you understand you're costing me a thousand dollars?
I do.
And that I don't care about that at all.
Yeah...
I like you.
I like girls who don't name themselves after Ivy League schools.
Do you want to know my real name?
Maybe later.
I like you.
I know you do, honey.
Don't talk to me like they talk to me.
Sorry. I didn't mean to.
I don't want to go back out there. I don't want to be good at this.
So what are you doing here?
Real estate isn't what it used to be.
How's it going so far?
It's my first weekend ever.
Sure it is.
Stop doing that. I have no reason to tell you stories.
Okay, okay. I know. So?
Four grand since Thursday.
Fuck real estate.
Could have been ten but like I said...
You don't want to be "good."
You got it.
Where you from?
Same place you are.
West Hollywood?
One block from you. Too bad you're moving to Thailand.
It's not such a bad thing.
I'm really happy I met you.
...yeah, me too.
I'm going to take you to dinner on Tuesday.
Are you?
You have a problem with that?
No. No problem.
Okay then.
Okay then.
May 16, 2010
Bangkok...
I got in around 3 last night and I don't think I'm staying. This isn't Bangkok. Things aren't good here. I told my driver to take me to my hotel, the third one I thought I could stay in during the last 3 days and he told me I couldn't go there, that the whole of central Bangkok has been sealed. He took me somewhere else, somewhere not too far, where I am now the only Farang walking the street. When he dropped me off he said exactly, "no snipers here good luck America."
Last night when we were turning off the highway, I could hear small crackles coming from not far. We drove past barricades of tires and bamboo on the Red's perimeter. He showed me spots in the street where fights had taken place the day before as we sped by, as we crept through the Reds' zone. It was close to 330 in the middle of the night and the Reds were assembled in large numbers, hundreds of their cars parked along the side of the road, inside the barriers. Someone was on a megaphone and rallying and I had this moment of adrenaline like fuck, this is what I came for this is not what I came for. I'm not afraid of what's happening out there. I have ultimate respect for it.
I haven't slept really since I can't remember when. Last night, I laid in bed for an hour or two before some light started to creep in through my windows, as I could hear more crackles, maybe worse than crackles. From my balcony, plumes of black smoke were rising into the sky. One would burn out, another would start. Walking the streets this morning, I was eating some fruit I've never seen before and saw 4 military trucks pass me by. They're shuttling troops in by the hundreds. More Reds are coming. I think I've seen enough.
May 26, 2010
Are You Happy?
Happiness is difficult to define. I still wake up in the mornings here and know I have to bleed something out. I think of all the rabid dogs I'll have to outrun and of the fights that will ensue in those following moments and for the rest of my life. At 6 in the morning, even here, that's black. I am aware of it, and also that it is here because I summon it, because I cannot survive without it. After 28 years of life, I've come to accept and understand what is necessary for me to operate with honesty. When hurt comes, it's usually because I'm asking it to come, to test me, to lend me new understanding before I deal with it. The origin usually stems from worlds that are out of my control or self-imposed titanic expectations I have of myself and I know that, know all of that. Like I said, I am an incredibly self-reflective person. I am aware of these battles. I am aware that with all of the light I live in and with all the light I believe I desire to shine, I'm equally evil and coarse. If you don't know, you don't know me. Not many do. That's how it will always remain...and I wouldn't be saying that unless there was a need. There is.
I feel open, more open than I have felt in a long, long time. I can feel everything here. I can feel so much. That truth makes me lose myself for moments thinking about it. Happiness to me...happiness to me is feeling like I am on a journey, knowing that everything happening here, every moment of literally every day is banking somewhere inside of me, giving me some form of a greater understanding of myself, of the people all around me. That is happening. I am growing. Saying that, knowing it's the truth...I'm happy here.
May 28, 2010
Full Moon...
I was walking through the front of the hotel a little while ago, stopped in for a chat with my Thai girl. She essentially runs the place I'm staying and every time I walk by or through, she treats me like a burden pig so no suspicions are raised. Of course I know this and stop by quite often, making sure I'm flirting, and hard, quite often. It pisses her off. Really. I love it. At night I leave my door unlocked and she'll slip in when I fall asleep if we haven't been out together already. Last night we were lying in bed and I told her I was going to Full Moon and she balked for a second before accusing me of saying I wasn't going to go. I never said that. There was this moment then when I could tell she was feeling something before she said something like, good...so you can meet some other girls...I'm happy for you. I think I said something like, no that's not me I'm not really like that. Then I tried to lean on my tone to convince her I'm like nothing like anything she has ever come across in her life (an exhausting bit, really), and that her expectations for my side of our species could not be laid upon me...
But I was riffing, and quick and when I looked up she was confused and I could tell she didn't understand my string of words, and was probably still thinking about what had happened with us, thinking about her own thinking that I was so incredibly harmless before I wasn't. I think I said something like don't worry. Then I said it again and sometime after, I think we went to sleep. At 6, her phone started making noises and shortly after, after checking to make sure no one would see her, she slipped out.
I'm here for another week and then I'm leaving. That's been in my head from the beginning. Truth, permanent abandonment will be in my head for the duration of this trip...and because of that, I trust myself to handle any and all situations such as the above mentioned with as much love and delicacy as I am capable. I don't know exactly what's in her head but I can speculate. I have an idea about how things are going to go down when I'm leaving next week, but then again maybe I don't.
June 05, 2010
Kuala Lumpur...
It's been a long day that started at 630 with girl crying for me on the streets of Chaweng. That's a fucking lot to handle and I can't say I've ever handled the understanding of it well. The moment just came, and there was nothing we could really say about it...today, last night, the week approaching. At some point, feelings happened we could never talk through because of the barriers between us. The way we did speak had to be all too simple...for me, for once...through glances or touches or a thousand other things I can't really explain to someone until they've been in something like it. I thought about her all day after I left, about the things in life I'm capable of giving and the things I'm not...why the weight of the latter is so heavy and at what point things became that way.
June 12, 2010
Monkeys...
Yesterday, I went out for a run around 6...maybe sometime after. I took a left on my quaint street and headed north maybe. There were houses and homestays and then the road got significantly tighter before it got tighter. Then there was a steep hill that rode up along a dirt cliff. Then it ended and I was running through the jungle or what looked and felt and sounded like it. I thought I was getting myself lost, excited by the possibility of it, following a stream and narrow footpath. I saw no one before I came across some naked Balinese bathing in the stream before I climbed another cliff before I popped out into the colors of setting sun and endless tiered rice fields. I was sweating and thought of crying before I took a deep breath, thankful that someone like me was going to someday paint it in truer and better words than this. It was a moment I wished I could give to everyone. Someday, I'll try.
June 20, 2010
This One's Loaded...
My Conversation With The "Am I Taking A Movie? I So Am..." Girl Who I Met Through Kyle And Corrie Who Lives In Jakarta With Her Husband And Three Boys, Has Always Lived Internationally And Decided To Pop-In To Bali For A Couple Days To Meet Them And Happen Upon Me, Towards The End Of The Night...After Weighing Me For Most Of It...
*Key - AUGUST = The girl who beat me up bad, bad from late summer through most of the fall in 2008...and I have the posts to prove it.
I think I know someone I should set you up with.
That's what they all say.
No, really. I've known her since I was 14.
Okay go. Where?
Los Angeles.
Oh, my city.
Yeah, I've got a feeling here.
What's her name, I probably already know her.
Yeah, right. AUGUST.
Excuse me?
AUGUST. Her name is AUGUST.
That's not a very common name.
Why are you looking at me like that?
No reason...
Why are you looking at me like that?
It's just...I think you're about to tell me about a friend of yours in Los Angeles who is the same girl that I dated, briefly, the same girl who cut me good, really fucking good when she dropped me, and I'm just trying to wrap my head around it all.
You're fucking with me?
No. You're fucking with me?
No. AUGUST SEPTEMBER. LIVED IN THESE PLACES, DID THESE THINGS...
That's her.
You're...
Absolutely not.
Wow. Nailed it! Her look seemed like your type.
Well, it was.
That's insane, I almost don't believe you.
Ask her about me sometime. Maybe she'll tell you that - that I was insane - that was popular for a little while.
Are you?
What do you think?
June 25, 2010
Mt. Rinjani...
The second night after dinner, we started talking with the more senior of our two porters, Jalan, who is a champion stickfighter come stickfighting season during Lombok's August. I'm going to be very stingy with my words right now, again, because I'm sure one day I won't be...but when you're standing by the fire, 6 people sharing rice wine out of the same cup, struggling to stay warm, and your guide is talking about black magic and a sport where two guys lash hell from each other until one of them cowers and retreats, the only thing I could think...there is no other existence on this entire living planet but ours...
July 08, 2010
Sri Lanka...
Yvonne tells me to make sure that if I want to go swimming at night, to wear shoes walking across the grounds, that at night, the bird that eats the scorpions from the grass is gone or sleeping or can't see them. Then she said something about lemon and drawing the poison but not to worry too much because they're not the ones that will cause death. There are two dogs living at the house and they both growl at me. Monkeys, big black ones, are swinging in the trees 50 yards away. Their babies are everywhere. Bandula says that on Sundays, they surround the entire complex. I am comfortable here.
July 14, 2010
Akurala & Kandy & Dambulla & Sigiriya...
My Then Conversation With The Man Who Walked Me Down A Path I Was Walking Down Anyway, Doing Everything I Could To Be Left Alone On The Side Of One Of Sri Lanka's Beautiful Historical Wonders...
My friend, hello American! Little Something...
Little something. Little something. You want a little something. Of course you do. Because you polluted my steps for 200 yards of course you do. I am going to tell you something can you listen close, do you understand? I know your country has been through a lot. I know. I have much respect for it or maybe I did. Are you still listening, do you understand? Your country is going to fail, fucking fail do you want to know why, do you understand? Not once since getting out into the blood of this country have I witnessed a single moment of genuine kindness. You don't understand the concept of it, do you understand? Are you still listening - oh, you don't want this anymore - oh, you want to walk away? That's okay, I'll follow you for a bit. Do you want to know what happened in Thailand when I was walking down a road 3 kilometers into town after running a marathon? Wait, I'll tell you. Don't you want your tip? I was picked up! I was taken to my hotel. When I tried to give him money, and generously, because that's what Americans do, he refused it, bowed his head to me and smiled. Now he's stuck in my heart forever, do you understand? No, of course you don't. And that's why you'll fail. That's why you'll never find your footing. Here, I'll leave it on the fucking ground.
August 01, 2010
Jodhpur & Jaislamer...
I've been worried about myself lately, that in leaving all of these countries behind, all of these countries and emotions behind, that my nostalgia, fleeting but instant nostalgia will paint every place I abandon in nothing but beautiful colors, even if it's not warranted. I think I was trying to think back to instances recently where that exact thing might have happened and couldn't because I'm both optimistic and choose to see light because seeing darkness is just too fucking easy for me. But now I'm not worried about that anymore, about the objective part of my lens through which I view the world. Because now I've been to India. Because now I'm so lost for a beginning I must so simply just begin.
My only hope in writing this is that I one day blow up big enough so that someone important enough in India will read my words from this day and hence ban me from ever visiting their country again...so that if for some ridiculous reason someone gives me some ridiculous reason for having to go back, I will be able to tell them quite unapologetically (and hopefully with a written certificate) that the Indian Consulate has officially stricken me from their borders.
I was ready for anything here. I've been around. I've been prepped. I didn't care that it's dirty - absolutely disgusting. I didn't care that it's overcrowded - can't tell you how many proclaimed "poor" fathers I met who were also "proud" fathers of 8-13 children. I didn't care that everyone was a snake or a swindler - wait, no, one of them wasn't - a beautiful hostess in the lobby of Agra's Howard Park Plaza. She was magnificent - made me feel wrong for trying to tip her, like I didn't understand the world she was occupying, a world unto herself -- magnificent the way she pranced about that elegant lobby. I should have remembered her name. One. I maybe met or came across enough of 300 people to form an impression of their character. Not a strong ratio. I didn't care that the beacon of this country, Delhi, is set to host the world Goodwill Games in less than 2 months and as a city, was an embarrassment of shambles and responsibility. I didn't care that people don't wait for passing trains of hundreds to pass before pissing or shitting in the open. I didn't care about the smell. I didn't care about the ignorance and faith in their progression as a country on a global scale. I didn't care that every day I had to ferociously watch my back...or that every night, my soul felt like it had been blackened by the world I witnessed. I didn't care that when people asked me to describe it, India, I'd combine words like inescapable death or hell on earth. I didn't care about the constant scroll of beaming words, red, running through my mind, forever on repeat: hopeless, beyond repair, run...fucking run! I didn't care about the ridiculous way Indians waddle their heads when they talk. I didn't care that they struck me as a lazy, inconsiderate, graceless and ambitionless people. I didn't care about any of that...
I knew what I went to india for and I did exactly that - to dip my toe and rape the place for my own growth and self service before abandoning it forever. Actually, that's not true at all. Nothing was pre-conceived. In my mind, laying in bed in Sri Lanka, I most certainly had hopes of the surprise enchantment India might hold for me. I absolutely did. I couldn't wait to get there and take it in. Then, I took it in. But the real clincher for me came the morning of my 16 hour train ride from Jaislamer back to New Delhi...
My Then Conversation With Some Guy Who Didn't Care That I Was Listening To My Headphones And Making It Abundantly Clear I Didn't Want To Nurse His Ridiculous Attempts At English...
America?
Yes, America. Where are you from? (his confusion) Where going?
New Delhi!
Me too.
Very good city!
You think so. Your English is very good.
Thankyouverymuch! You like India!
Sure. Beautiful. Different.
America far. Too far...too...
Believe me buddy, I know.
Culture no. No good! Too fast. India culture. Better.
India culture better than American? Really? So you've been? You've seen? Done what I've done?
India culture better!
Shortly after, he got up and walked to the sink to brush his teeth, which surprised me before he returned with toothpaste and slobber covering his chin, which didn't. That's the moment I started caring...
No, fuck that. I cared the whole time.
August 04, 2010
Hong Kong...
My bed here is perfect, large and white and stainless and everything on it is soft and comfortable and slipping into it is like the realization of an ideal long forgotten. It's so good that when I try to sleep at night, I can't. I love Hong Kong, love it from head to toe, and not only because of what came before it. I want to get a place I can't afford on some steep slope in Soho, fall in love with some girl for a month and then leave before she realizes just how problematic I am.
August 18, 2010
I've Grown...
So I'm sitting here on wednesday night, about to pretend like I am going to be able to go to sleep early in prep for tomorrow's trying morning. I'm running a half-Ironman in 3 days. I don't have a place to stay. And I don't have a bike. But you know what, If there were a mirror in front of me, I think I would look at myself and think something like, that guy's got it all under control...that guy can handle anything. In the past, I'm pretty sure that entire last sentence would have been my punchline...and it sort of still is. But inside of me, it's not, and I'm really not trying to be that funny. Everything was starting to feel pretty clean around here, comfortable around here. Tomorrow, my life turns to chaos and I can feel it and the potential approaching disaster coming, and hard, really fucking hard. I want it to try and find me. I want hotels to refuse me at every turn. I want everyone to fall through. I want to have to sleep in some poor Philippine family's creekside tent in the country. I want them to make me work their land in exchange for my stay. I want them to send me off before supper on the last night with a live chicken I became friendly with, the patriarch of the family handing me a butcher knife and saying something like now you become a man. I want to wake up the morning of race day and eat oatmeal and almonds with the family, borrow the youngest boy's tireless BMX and his plastic army helmet. I want them to see me off with no understanding as to why I came to the Philippines in the first place. I want to ride up to that starting line, sparks kicking off my rims, fuck you all in my eyes, before I drop blood across the lengths of CamSur.
August 21, 2010
A Bike In Naga City...
So I'm wandering the expo at the CamSur Watersports Complex and it's 530, after wandering since 1 and asking everyone to help me. Bike drop off ended at 5 but they extended it to 7. A girl I met named Karen has sent me to another girl Che Che, both extraordinary, who is stationed at the Bike King tent. I tell her my story. She laughs. She gets on the phone, calls someone, who never calls back. I sit at the tent, chat up the Nature Valley team. Che Che calls someone new, some priest who might have a friend who might have a bike. The sun is setting and I feel like I don't belong. Two guys walk up, a priest and another guy Erick, a bike mechanic from Naga City. He tells me he can build a bike for me. He gives me his number and tells me to call him at 7. I see him on the way out, at bike and bag check in. I talk to the people in charge. They panic. Erick walks up, tells them that he is taking me to his shop in Naga, that he is going to build me a bike and have me back by 9. The people in charge tell us that we will be making everyone wait. Afterwards, a girl tells me not to feel bad - they are going to be there all night.
August 27, 2010
Tokyo...
It's that dream where you're running from something, in a race but your legs won't work. Not really. Like you're treading water on the ground or floating just above it. Why? Well, there are certain things in this world that speak to me. Haribos on the streets of Berlin, running down the winding coastline of Victoria Drive, the way Brandon Flowers writes a song, the way Matthew Bellamy plays one, driving through empty red Utah, the smell of snow. Because I've lived with myself for as long as I have, I always suspected Japanese girls might one day prove to be one of those things. But I never thought it would be like this. They're fit and fashionable and beautiful and every one of them looks like they're capable of bare-handed murder. I've been struck more times in the past 3 days than I have been in the past 3 months. So then why the dream? Secret of Japan, no one speaks English. They also don't realize that no one speaks Japanese - which I sort of admire. I can't communicate with words and I'm worried about my understanding of the way they play, about coming across a situation where I need something from someone and that my eyes might not be enough...
