May 31, 2010

Superfight!

This...


Made me go back and get my camera. I felt like today, I committed to a cause that will propel the rest of my life. Today, I finally felt like I dug my toes in and made a commitment to be strong, to bury any past perceptions I've had of myself, good or bad and essentially start from scratch. I was walking back from my 3rd hard workout of the day and I was swaying before I dropped myself in the pool. They were setting up for the night - nights here are always big...and Absolution was playing on the beach...the entire album...all the way through. Fucking Absolution. My chest was beating so hard in the water, it was making waves. To the south, a massive island storm was on its way - lightning continuously lighting up the sky. All I had to do was sit and breathe and realize it would be a moment in my entire life I would never forget, and that I am finding my stride.

May 28, 2010

Full Moon...


Sometime around 730, I'm getting picked up in front of my hotel and heading to Koh Phagnan, an island about 20 kilos from Koh Samui...because once a month, this legendary thing is supposed to take place - Thailand's Full Moon Party. People from all over the world that are staying all over Thailand or any nearby place of living end up on Phagnan 12 times a year. One of those nights is tonight.

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 any 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.

May 26, 2010

Are You Happy?

I've been rapping with the great Lindsey Long about Lost and its finale and the astounding Moulin Rouge (which was on here in Thailand yesterday...as was P.S. I Love You ((I'm sure the guild is right on top of that, aren't they Steve!)), when she decided to so casually drop the casual, "Are You Happy?" Big question. Maybe the biggest question of them all...

Let me say first off that I am an extraordinarily self-reflective person. Probably to a fault. It means I usually know what every decision I make means to me, at least on the grand scale. When the decision came for me to get up and leave Los Angeles, there was room for a thousand questions, most of them concentrating around the word why. Los Angeles was comfortable and accessible. I had love for it and it had love for me. It didn't make sense for me to get up and do what I did...but maybe that's exactly why I knew I had to - why I knew I didn't have a choice. I would also be lying if I didn't admit something was strangling me there, taking me and squeezing me dry of something I can't afford to be dry of. I needed a rinse. I needed a shake. I needed to reset myself and have now begun to start that process here.

Yes, I am happy. Absolutely. I was happy when I was in Los Angeles too. Absolutely. Like most people if they are willing to admit, I can swing pretty far in both directions, and often do. When I hit black, I try to understand it and know that I have control over the events that will lead me back towards the light. I know what it takes, know a little better what it takes every time I go into badness and get out of it.

The question of happiness means a lot coming from who it came from because about 3 years ago, we met up and lived together in Cape Town for 8 weeks - essentially to do similar things as the things I'm doing here. There were times in paradise where we hit some form of black and didn't know how to handle it because how could something like that exist in the place we were living? That's what we were thinking. That's what we were asking each other - heavy when you consider it. Just like everything in this life, circumstances can't change you. I think we understood that better than most people, at least because we were in it and living in it...or at least we understand it excellently now.

So when it was time to move to Thailand, to come over here and go searching again - I didn't expect it to be some form of rescue. Never in my life would I ever rely on something like this to patch something in my former life. That would be weak and evasive and I flag shit like that instantly and face it instantly. This was something else. This was in my guts. If I've learned to trust anything in this world, it's that my intuition is strong and I must follow it.

I came here to write another book, or to find the colors for the next book - even though the first one is still, actually still in limbo. It makes me sleepless but not really. I came here to train for the November Ironman in Cozumel. Yesterday I ran a morning and evening 5k sprint and swam for an hour in the ocean. This morning, I already ran for 90 minutes in the soul-sucking heat...and I genuinely, genuinely feel like I have yet to commit to the cause. My head is so beautifully poisoned. So I'm dealing with that...a lot of that. The first day I got here, I met a Thai girl who reminded me of my sole crazy at first sight that I never took to bed. I was so in love with this girl and it never happened because of her. When I met this Thai girl, she was so shy, barely spoke English. I've been spending time on Google translator, started to get worried that I was turning into a Love Actually arc when last night, she came knocking on my door. She spoke English beautifully and then didn't have to. Now I have a Thai girlfriend until the 5th of June and she woos me incredibly.

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 25, 2010

May 23, 2010

I'm Going To Call This Mild Structure...


Today, as an attempted cure for what could otherwise be deemed wandering around Southeast Asia, I now know where I am going to be on both June 20th and then August 23rd. Today, I booked a place in the Bali International triathalon at Jimbaran Bay (Olympic distance), and then also the Ironman 70.3 in Camarines Sur, Phillipines. It's going to be the route that eventually takes me through Tokyo and then back home. I also have a couple more stops eyed, but for now, this is good.

Yesterday, I was watching Seabiscuit on TV. Fitting, beautiful movie. I'll come back to that. On the website for the Bali tri, there was a disclaimer that there are no places to rent touring road bikes on the island, but that there are mountain bikes available. And that's fine...at least right now, it's not gonna be about the time. I'm imagining the same thing will happen in the half Ironman, which is a damn long way to ride when your competition is riding on magic wheels. Anyway, in Seabiscuit, the narrator talks about the horse's upbringing, about how it was raised to train with the prize ponies and then pull up short at the finish and lose on purpose so that the other horse's confidence could build and build. Meanwhile, Seabiscuit turned to fire and brimstone used every one of those losses to sharpen the growing chip on his shoulder so that one day when his time came, he could just fly. Beautiful, beautiful movie. I'm gonna try to play it like he played it when I get passed by the Euros on their eight thousand dollar bikes, getting lapped by competitors with lesser guts, giving less than me and zooming past. I'm gonna let it build me and build me, so that when my time does come, I can just fly.

Feels like I'm dropping stakes. Like I'm on my way.

May 20, 2010

Not Training...


Last night I got pulled to an event at this hotel on the water called The Library. Very cool joint. They flew an artist in (from Los Angeles of all places) to showcase his work and then flew in an equally talented chef to create a 5 course dinner menu that would match the colors and textures of the paintings. Harmony, or so they said...and was achieved. It was a great night. I met three other people from my end of the table and we paired wines with each course. After, we jumped in a car and crossed town to seek out a fabled bar that two of us had never been to and was supposed to be tucked back into one of the hills of Samui, chasing immortality...or so I say.

May 19, 2010

Training...

This morning, like the last 2, I got up in the 6's to go for a run. I thought today I would extend things to about 8 miles, as I'm slowly letting my body come to terms with what it's like to chase strength in this heat. Deciding to take on the Ironman is propelling me. The fact that I need to qualify for Kona in 6 months is propelling me. I know I'll have to find new spaces in myself that I didn't think existed. It's not that I'm not ready for them yet but more...one thing at a time.

I had one major concern coming over here and training across uncontrolled territories - stray dogs. Stray dogs don't like runners. They don't trust us - here I am speaking for the collective when I might be the only one on the planet with this problem...but I know that's not true. Even the craziest of crazed dogs will usually follow me wherever I am going. It's a fact. In Thailand and on the main stretch of Chaweng, they're everywhere. Most of them are absolutely friendly and most of them are too hot or too old or too hungry to give a shit about someone running by. But some do. Right now, I'd say about 1 in 14 do give a shit. Today, at about the turnaround or the 4 mile mark, I met one of them. You can usually tell right away if they are going to make a move on you. It's in their eyes, a distinct change in their movement. As I ran past today, this one came after me, barking and moving with me, looking like it was going to take a swipe at my feet or my shoes - as it's understandable and widely known that some dogs absolutely have a shoe fetish, right? The first time I passed, I slowed down to an easy jog, began yelling and flagging my shirt in its face. Once we had gone about a hundred yards, it turned back, not wanting to get taken too far from home or having successfully chased me away from it's territory. I knew I was going to come the same way home, knew that the same fucker was going to be sitting outside of the same shop and waiting for me...

I came to the top of a hill and he was watching me. He was EXACTLY fucking waiting for me. He was watching the cars pass in front of him like Frogger waiting for a break so that he could cross and fuck with me. I got to the top of the hill and started walking, hoping that he might let me slide. He wasn't about to. When he broke for me, I broke. There were Thais on the opposite side of the road and they were watching this crazy dog chasing a monster Farang and I can only imagine the Thai things they were saying to one another. Maybe they said nothing. There was a moment I looked back and realized he didn't stand a chance or didn't want to and I turned around and taunted the dog because why wouldn't I before turning back and finishing at a blazing pace all the way home, so fast the 20 or so dogs I then passed didn't even think of chasing me.

I am a person who does everything he can to find light in darkness, to spin and spin and spin until things turn out in my head the way I know I'll need them to turn out in my life. These dogs scattered all over this island and wherever else I'm headed, they are my gift. They are here to keep me sharp and alert and they are here to teach me to love them and they are here to make me fast, so fast. For that, I am grateful.

May 18, 2010

Chaweng...

It's 10 in the morning now. While the video was uploading, I walked to the beach. The cats chase crabs here and watching them is a good way to get some sun and listen to music and pass some time. I have to walk to the street to find some goggles to keep salt out of my eyes when I swim. That's my major sub noon development in Koh Samui, as I've already been up since 4 and writing. There's a party at my resort today, every wednesday and it's supposed to draw from most of this side of the island.

Durban is staying north of me. I told him I wanted to stay here and he has a place and we decided that be the best way to do things. He's recently been through something very trying and we're trying to have respect for that. When he comes to meet me, he comes to meet me and we're okay to leave it at that.

But for now, this is home...

May 16, 2010

Already On A Flight To Koh Samui...

Where I'm gonna set up for a while because I need to start training and hard and start that peel. And because after rubbing elbows with what I just rubbed elbows with, I need to get my feet on the ground, solid ground, try to come to terms with the fact that every native woman here looks a lot or at least a little bit like Phoebe Cates circa Fast Times...

And that I may never need sleep again.

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 15, 2010

Smells Like Airplane In Here...

On a plane to Taipei. No one speaks my language. No one looks like me. They're looking at me.

Away we go...

May 13, 2010

Plans Change, We Understand...

Says Orbitz when I cancel my original hotel reservation in Bangkok, after I read that the military is closing in on the Red Shirts in Bangkok. There's a line in the original Ghostbusters where Ray says something to Peter like your girlfriend is living in the corner penthouse of spook central - in reference menacing and apocalyptic ghouls and ghosts threatening to unmake the world and Manhattan. That's the line that came to mind when I looked at a Thailand native's Google Map of the affected area, the area of Bangkok where hell is about to break loose, and realized my hotel is the fucking EYE of spook central. It's the kind of locale that will find the Red Shirts hiding in the lobby when the army moves in, which is going to happen any moment now...literally any fucking moment if it hasn't happened already.

My first instinct was that it felt like destiny, that this was absolutely something that I needed to do. Remain there. Ignorance at its worst. I'm not. I'm moving off. Because this isn't my fight, and it's something I can not pretend to understand, even if at times I pretend to.

I hope Durban is on my page.

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 03, 2010

How Alcatraz Went Down...

4 AM the alarm goes off and I realize what's coming - have my moment of growth, ask myself what the hell I've gotten myself into before proceeding.

5 AM I leave with a plastic bag in each hand, a duffel slung over my shoulder, riding for Marina Green to board the busses to take me to the boat to Alcatraz. 515 I'm blowing down one of San Francisco's blazing hills when I decide to take a sharp turn, when the wetsuit in my plastic bag gets caught in the spoke of my front wheel, flipping my bike and sending me over the front handlebars and smashing me onto the pavement. Somehow, I caught myself, because I'm agile like a damn cat or just damn lucky, and nothing was too broken or badly damaged. Two guys stopped to make sure I was alright, helped me to pry my wetsuit from my wheel and I continued on.

The next thing I know and because I'm tired and in Cambria and wanting to go to sleep, I'm on the boat and my wetsuit is on and the professionals are getting ready to jump and the national anthem is playing. Next, I jumped into the water and no matter how much fire you've got...and I've got plenty, swimming though San Francisco Bay is daunting, daunting. The first 5 minutes, all I could think was I'm going to drown I have no idea where I'm going, the current is going to carry me out to the Golden Gate Bridge where the real sharks will be waiting and all these people are around me and thrashing and we're all going in different directions and this is fucking anarchy! Then my heart rate picked up and my beautiful body adjusted and I found my stroke and made it to the shore in 31 minutes - 1.5 miles. I don't have all the exact times, so you can bet if there's rounding to occur, it's going to be down.

When I hit the beach, I couldn't walk, completely discombobulated, like I'd been on an uber-hyper Tilt A Whirl set on repeat and repeat and repeat. I couldn't see straight and couldn't walk straight and couldn't think straight but knew there was a line of people on the beach cheering us on and that I was trying to look strong and in control before I fell into them, literally like a damn lush, before I apologized before I got my wits and actually got strong again before I hit my bike and began my 18 miles of brutally beautiful ups and downs.

On a road bike, at least at first, I was all guts and lacking nerves. When the bike race started, because I was held back for so long when jumping off the boat, I was riding in packs of people I had no business riding with. When the hills came and I could climb, I was passing by the dozens. Then we'd get to the top of the hill and fly down and it took me a few to be able to handle bombing down with faith. Even if you'd been on a road bike all your life, these hills were fast as hell. Last year a guy wiped out and they had to wipe him of the pavement and med-evac him out. People were whispering about that everywhere. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't somewhere in my head. I finished right around 59 minutes.

The first and last 2 miles of the run are pretty flat. I used the first 2 to get my legs before the hills started, before the stairs started, before the off road running through tunnels and passageways started, before the run on the beach started, before the climb up the sand ladder. We doubled back and hit hill after hill before heading back down, before I sprinted the last 2 home, probably close to 6's by then. I crossed in 2:43, 222 out of a strong field of 2000. It was beautiful. The people, the sights, the experience. Beautiful.

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.

And I'm just getting started. Trust that.

May 01, 2010

Fran Sancisco...

The moment I stepped into my hotel room on Van Ness, I judged its merit by asking myself a simple question...does this seem like the sort of room where someone committed a violent crime circa 1930? I thought yes, yes someone did. It's not a lousy place. At all...it's just got that kind of feel. Free Internet though.

I've been on a pancake diet since this morning. Okay, I had pancakes this morning. During the afternoon, I went down to the harbor so that someone could write 283 on my hand and shoulder and tell me how to run the Escape From Alcatraz Triathalon in the early Sunday AM. Boats and bikes and shoes and rules. I hate rules. Even guidelines. Anyway...

I wanted a plate of pasta because it's what I always eat at 6 PM the night before a race, and there were two options - a posh joint adjacent to Union Square and a place called Little Henry's Italian Food that popped up from Google and was within walking distance. I read about a line of the review that said something like, "no, really, the entire joint is run by Vietnamese but pretty good." I went to Henry's, and sure enough, Henry was back behind the grill, Vietnamese Henry and his Vietnamese staff. The place was pretty crowded with regulars - everyone hanging out and watching World's Deadliest Police Chases as I ate my pasta with salad and bread for 7.25. I think I left about a 75 percent tip for the privilege to dine with talkative meth-heads who were trying and trying and trying to strike up conversations with me. I didn't have the energy, not tonight, and finally answered back in something that "sounded" French and that was that. That was that.