Bali...

People Sometimes Ask Me...

What my parents think of what I do, of my crossing the world believing the words I write and the things I experience will someday be important. I say they're on board, or that they learned at some point that the train was going to keep rolling regardless of what they thought of me...so better to be on it. Then I correct myself and say what I just said wasn't meant to be cold before I offer something in English like I have the best parents in the world, supportive and inspiring and so many other things I could get into in a long spat...but I'd rather just post this and let it speak for itself...

Koooala Lumfuckingpur! What you are doing is just so, so, so amazing. I contemplate in thoughtful moments like these and can hardly imagine. Those loose screws in your head are what make you who you are and what you do but thank God for those loose screws and who you are. Hope to see you sometime in the not too distant future but in the mean time suck up as much of this as you can. And of course always watch where you're going but at the same time watch your back. Go Celtics and fuck k0be and Phil Jackson.

-G

Kuala Lumpur...

I Want To Be A Better Person...

Tonight, I was wandering town, plans set on crashing a couple of the swank hotel bars for cocktails and something to eat. I ended up at this place I read about online instead called Hakka Republic. It was across from the Shangri La, where I was planning on going eventually. Hakka was right down the street from some of the more obnoxious bars in KL, where women stand out front asking me if I want "young girl cheap price." I didn't. I don't.

When I walked into Hakka, it was empty. It was sunday night and that was about the only reason. From what I hear, the place does well...and from the food and service and style, it better. The guy who greeted me at the door said they were doing a sunday buffet, and for an extra 30 MR, it was all you could drink Tiger draft. I hadn't been eating much since showing up in Malaysia and went for a long run in the morning...tomorrow is going to be a killer, so all day I was thinking about eating a big plate of good food. Though I never expected it to be as good as it turned out to be. In truth, the entire buffet was all for me - everything someone could dream of - tiger prawns to filet, short rib to pumpkin soup, handmade pasta to bread pudding. Knocked me out. Knocked me out.

At some point, the exec chef came out to talk to me. Then, the sous chef. They changed clothes and closed the kitchen and the exec chef came out and took some pictures of me loving his restaurant. They told me to finish my drink and took me to the parking lot. I got into one of the cook's cars and we drove to Chinatown because the sous chef didn't want me to get caught in any of the Skybar and Luna Bar traps that most foreigners get caught into. There, we wandered the streets looking for the perfect Durian - "corpse fruit" - banned in public places because it fucking stinks - but is also like nothing you or I have ever tasted - think cross between a mango and avocado. When we found a stand, we four sat down at a table on the street and ate this thing - three chefs and one fucking tourist. They wouldn't let me pay for a thing. Not the Durian, not the water it took to cleanse us from the smell of a "corpse," not anything. We walked for a bit and talked for a bit and then got back in the car. We talked about all the shit in the world before they dropped me off at my hotel, wanting nothing from me but company. Nothing. I told them there's a marathon in KL on June 27th that might bring me back and they said they hoped to see me. Then they smiled and drove off. And I...

I still don't know what to say. Thailand turned me so cynical, so cynical, everyone working something. Loved it, beautiful, but still. And walking away from this, tonight made me want to weep, made me want to give thanks to a thousand ears and not one of them gave a shit about hearing it. They just were what they were...are what they are...

And I have a lot of work to do.

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.

Tonight, I went out wandering, looking for something like a super market then a place for dinner. First point of order was to prepare a double fist of Gatorade for tomorrow morning's run - my word, the heat here is supposed to beat Thailand - and fought hard for a while trying to place myself. Big town. Fast town. Crazy town. It's a lot less Asian and a lot more Indian than I expected. People are praying everywhere, all the time. The supermarket never really happened. Dinner happened at a street restaurant at the end of an alley in Little India - rice with a side of chicken stew, side of chickpea stew, Coke. Very cheap. I tipped the guy and felt like I made him worry he was ripping me off. So I can't do that again. Every now and again, I catch someone looking at me who is either fascinated or wants to see my head on a stick. If anyone asks, I'll tell them that I'm a Canadian and that yes, I love their God and pray to it 5 times a day...

No, no. It's not really like that. Everyone on this side of the world has given me nothing but warmth so far. That's the truth. Tomorrow, I'll see what this place is like during the day, continue to enjoy my hot shower, sandless bed for a couple nights.

There's a building sitting behind me called the Petronas Towers - tallest in the world. The cabbie who took me from the bus station made me make him a promise that I would go to the top - free tickets. I told him I was incredibly afraid of heights and he made me promise again, which I did. I said, alright dude...but it's gonna fuck with me something terrible and I might make a scene in front of a lot of people. Then he said deal, and smiled, and I guess that settled things.

Korp Kun Krap Thailand...

Tomorrow morning I'm getting up at 630, heading to the airport in Samui. Can't believe it's already been 20 days. After living on an island for most of it, I need some big city jolt before heading to another island. Everything here is so close. I used to have this dark spot in my mind - what cultures were like on this side of the world - like I didn't understand the world completely and how all of it worked together. Now that plans are starting to form in my mind, I'm beginning to think of the world as a very small place - or at least I will fully when this is all said and done.

I thought I was going to stay in Thailand for a long, long time. It's such a big country - so many places to go, so many different flavors to taste and see. I got it, at least as well as I'll ever need to right now. Something is taking me elsewhere, and it's the kind of something I'd be best not to question, the kind of something I'd be better off just following. So that's what I'm doing. I feel detached and exhausted, wonderfully exhausted, like there are things inside of me that needed to get pulled out and got pulled out.

There's a Girl here that's been treating me real good, a Girl I have to say goodbye to tomorrow morning, who I will see again and not forget. She caught it nicely...

Reset...
Reload...
Repeat and onward.

Angthong...

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.

Koh Phagnan...

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.

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.

Samui Falls...

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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...