Open your ears, your mind, have a better life, came the condescending words from the music peddler when I showed no interest in his self produced music. It was a put down since I would not buy from him or tell him how great he was. I am always polite in my refusal to buy. I don't waffle and I am consistent.
He began with an insincere, Don't I know you? as he tried to get between me and my journal, I was writing a scathing piece on the weak souls of the Rainbow Gathering movement, while gritty blues blasted from my truck. It is the same everywhere, especially backpacker hippie travel havens like this one called Sayurit. I would rather be pick pocketed by an Italian. At least that is a sincere art form and when practiced well, it is like magic. This is to be respected.
The music man was whinny, insincere, and petty.The world is weakened by his ability to publish his own music. The whole vetting process that brings us quality music and writing has been bypassed when art is promoted this way. The New Way is vain and filled with people that have seriously thin skin; to them the first draft or cut is perfect and when you voice otherwise like any editor or producer worth his weight would, they take it personal, they become piqued. You don't understand them.
The world is also weakened by my ability to publish. I hate telling people I have a blog, it makes me sound self important and somehow different, as if I were a writer. Without being vetted by editors I am very little, only vain enough to publicly share travel experiences that were perhaps better laid to rest in the paper journal where they were given birth.
The New Way, self publishing, is filled with mythical success stories of being discovered. It is a myth perpetuated by those of us, the desperate and the vain, who use it -it keeps us in it. It makes the unimportant feel important. We feel superior to the 9 to 5er's who let the anger out on the vicious commute home, hardly contemplating the traps they have worked themselves into.
The system is weakened when we self publish our souls, when good friends might perform an equivalent function over a bottle of wine. With less friends, less ideas we take the shortcut and self publish, instead of working like writers and musicians who use publishers, editors and producers.
I better finish those articles and hope they are accepted.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Dispatch Number 14 -Errant Thoughts
Errant Thoughts-
On the Need for Stillness
The importance of idleness. When busy, nothing is clear. I stare at the sea and observe the cactus without anxiety or trashy thoughts about how busy I should be. It helps me see and write. I have a few things in my truck, the essentials to camp in remote places and that is all I own. I think that if I ever loose the truck I will switch to a motorcycle and be even more free because I can carry less with me.
Possessions clutter our minds, the less we own the freer we are and the clearer we think. Less stuff helps us see where we are or more so where we aren't. The most content people I know own the least crap. Some dream of owning more stuff and I think from a bias standpoint, "Don't they know they have already arrived?"
Just stop thinking about acquiring possessions and the ease and peace of mind is yours. Bukowski may have put it best, "Everything you own must be able to fit inside one suitcase, then your mind might be free."
On Photos
We used a phrase in business "Death by PowerPoint", it was when a person giving a presentation over relied on the "slide" format to communicate with a group often using one hundred slides or more, the bad ones read their slides to us. This was death to a businessman, but it was a place for us to hide and do nothing while looking busy. Corporate America the shell game. The concept is the same with the personal photograph.
It starts with an innocent, "Oh, I have a shot of that place, wanna see?" Mute politeness has you staring into a microscopic screen on the back of a camera or a microscopic one on a laptop. The mute politeness is interpreted as keen interest and fuels their desire to have you see all their shots. All. The blurry, the poorly framed, those washed out with sun, of dull people and things, over flashed, the whole unedited lot. DELETE is not an option even on the worst of shots.
They mistake their joy of personal memory for yours. It is painful and brutal because with the digital format they take hundreds of shitty pictures, no longer restrained by "developing" film the lid is off. I am weary when others ask if I want to see their pictures. Weary. It would be slightly more bearable IF I could rip through them fast and stop for the eye catchers, but they demand total control over the button dragging it out with "this is snow in...".
Death by amateur photography. Once again confirmed for this traveler that pictures are for the sole memory of the one who took them. After 1,000 pictures you usually have only a few worth sharing, ones that make an impact, that capture the subject, the light, the shade and frame up well. When you show pictures it must be the best of your shots. I noticed that well composed portrait shots with interesting subjects garner the most interest. They tend to be endlessly fascinating to view: the eyes, wrinkles, face, skin, hair, teeth, the chin and the amount of character that comes out under the eyes. A mountain is as uninteresting as the next or a snow flake for that matter. After every 200 shots there are perhaps 5 or fewer that capture it. All the other shots are experimentation trying to capture something that the naked eye sees but the camera does not.
Unhelpful Data
Fuel in Mexico is 50 cents per liter (that's $2.25/gallon)
In Guatemala it is $2.75/gallon
Wash & Fold laundry is $1 per kilogram
A Combi (VW bus shared with others) ride across town is 28 cents
A baguette is 18 cents
Room for two in nothing fancy, but clean is $14 for the night
Dorm room accommodations in a hostel are $4 per night
Excellent plate of food at an Economic Kitchen is $3.75
A taco is 50 cents
Travel
Travel is a place to study death and motion and your own character or lack of it.
On Time and Motivation
The less you do, the less you do. It gets to the point of doing so little that brushing your teeth becomes a relatively big deal, shaving out of the question. Question: where is the balancing point between work and no work for a healthy life?
Over worked. Over rested. I suppose when we grow incurious that spells the end of us in either extreme.
People
The people who know the most seem to do the least.
They only want to hear their own voices, to be heard, to have their voices echo off the poor innocent. Business schemes galore followed by, "Oh, but I can't right now, the economy you know..." Americans whine about money and economy and the Mexican who has to endure this bloated huffer has long been familiar with economic hardship looks upon their poor me song with no sympathy.
The Girl
The girl had no conversation. Next to none. The simplest of questions were met with,"yes" followed by silence. You think it might be you, your chemistry, your humor, then you listen to others try to talk to her and it's, well, the same.
The girl had no conversation in her. Beauty without charm is like food without spices. She must be saving it for somebody. Someday. A rainy day.
Warnings
Paul Theroux said, The warnings filled me with resolve and seemed as hearty to me a salutation. Fear mongering is something people enjoyed doing to me at home, in the Motherland, before I left for Latin America and I find it here again on the road in Mexico. I will admit warnings excite me. The "...do not go here...", or "...it is dangerous in...", phrases have me consulting maps as soon as the conversation is over.
The ones who don't go have the worst to say about a place. Those that do go always tell you to go.
What's Next?
Today is a day for taking things into account. To reflect on the recent past of people and places. To review maps and guide notes from people like Tom. To map out possibilities and let it all influence you. It unfolds and I'm in it.
Travel
Travel requires tremendous energy. Looks easy on the outside. Everything familiar is stripped away. Always moving, having to quickly learn a village or city. To be a stranger everywhere you go. Childlike, defenseless and dim and having to learn a language. Childlike and dependent. The level of concentration to speak a second language is immense, it is also immensely rewarding to communicate in a language that is not you own, the experience fulfills endless curiosity of what you see everyday -none of it familiar.
More Unhelpful Data
I have not looked at a weather report in six months.
Have watched tv twice.
Have not used a digital map like Yahoo or an electronic navigational device like GPS.
Traveled solo 4 times.
Gained what I believe is 10 pounds (about 5kg) on the Mexican diet of tortillas, rice, beans, sweets, brown colored Wonder bread and Coca-Cola. Only my Chiropractor knows how I feel.
Warfare
Matt plays his Gameboy war game with single mindedness -marching through cities on a keyboard with tanks and men. This morning while he played I asked if he was,"Winning their hearts and minds?".
Highwayman
A pack of children perhaps four or five years old caught us at a speed bump (tope in Spanish) on the highway in the countryside of Chiapas by pulling a ragged rope across the road to force a stop and extract a toll under duress. These children were highwaymen without horses. It worked and we came to a complete stop and as soon as we halted those little hands came in through my window, needy hands demanding a peso or 5, I can't remember, so we could continue traveling the highway.
I gave one peso and we were on our way, finding humor in it all. Matt one of the travelers with me reminded me that by handing over that peso I was encouraging begging. I conceded the point that I contributed to habitualizing the act. Emboldened I decided to run all future road blocks these little urchins might erect. I have to hope that when I run the next one that the kid with the rope doesn't have it wrapped around his hand -the worst outcome will be the rope gets tangled up on the bumper of the truck and drags the helpless highwayman down the road.
The image is bad: truck bounding down steep mountain road with small bloody hand dangling in tow, villagers screaming bloody murder. Held up by a pack of five year olds who pull rope across a free road to extract a highwayman's toll.
In the Company of Men
In the company of men we act like boys out in the jungle; we pick and pull at nature around us, stopping to look at something every few feet. We see strange mushrooms, birds with massive beaks eating nuts high up in trees, monkeys that have a terrorizing howl, and cascades of water over limestone formations that take on magical amoebic shapes.
In the company of men. A day in the jungle. One of our group, a man named Shoe, picks, pulls, kicks, breaks and inspects anything in his path. He once was an oil driller in the wilderness of Canada, so I guess he can not help it. Shoe walks on everything leaving a subtle but obvious wake, wherever, he treads. At times the solid concrete limestone formations at the falls don't look safe from his exploratory effects.
Stealing
Stealing looks. Everybody does it. It is an awkward kind of theft, you want to stare to satisfy some deep need. To study and appreciate beauty as if 'she' were a museum piece. You look away in haste, you have stolen a look.
Mexican Women
After six months traveling through Mexico having entered from the north in Tijuana and exited in the south into Guatemala I feel comfortable sharing this observation about Mexican women. Their perfect form is brief, from age 15 to 20 years old, after this approximate age the deterioration is rapid and complete. Nubile bodies transform rapidly into pear shaped ones with plump pumpkin faces. They lose it quick. I suppose lack of exercise and the Mexican diet get them early.
Generalizations are generalizations and I have seen plenty of exceptions, however, the description above holds true more than not.
Guatemala
I am in Guatemala now.
On the Need for Stillness
The importance of idleness. When busy, nothing is clear. I stare at the sea and observe the cactus without anxiety or trashy thoughts about how busy I should be. It helps me see and write. I have a few things in my truck, the essentials to camp in remote places and that is all I own. I think that if I ever loose the truck I will switch to a motorcycle and be even more free because I can carry less with me.
Possessions clutter our minds, the less we own the freer we are and the clearer we think. Less stuff helps us see where we are or more so where we aren't. The most content people I know own the least crap. Some dream of owning more stuff and I think from a bias standpoint, "Don't they know they have already arrived?"
Just stop thinking about acquiring possessions and the ease and peace of mind is yours. Bukowski may have put it best, "Everything you own must be able to fit inside one suitcase, then your mind might be free."
On Photos
We used a phrase in business "Death by PowerPoint", it was when a person giving a presentation over relied on the "slide" format to communicate with a group often using one hundred slides or more, the bad ones read their slides to us. This was death to a businessman, but it was a place for us to hide and do nothing while looking busy. Corporate America the shell game. The concept is the same with the personal photograph.
It starts with an innocent, "Oh, I have a shot of that place, wanna see?" Mute politeness has you staring into a microscopic screen on the back of a camera or a microscopic one on a laptop. The mute politeness is interpreted as keen interest and fuels their desire to have you see all their shots. All. The blurry, the poorly framed, those washed out with sun, of dull people and things, over flashed, the whole unedited lot. DELETE is not an option even on the worst of shots.
They mistake their joy of personal memory for yours. It is painful and brutal because with the digital format they take hundreds of shitty pictures, no longer restrained by "developing" film the lid is off. I am weary when others ask if I want to see their pictures. Weary. It would be slightly more bearable IF I could rip through them fast and stop for the eye catchers, but they demand total control over the button dragging it out with "this is snow in...".
Death by amateur photography. Once again confirmed for this traveler that pictures are for the sole memory of the one who took them. After 1,000 pictures you usually have only a few worth sharing, ones that make an impact, that capture the subject, the light, the shade and frame up well. When you show pictures it must be the best of your shots. I noticed that well composed portrait shots with interesting subjects garner the most interest. They tend to be endlessly fascinating to view: the eyes, wrinkles, face, skin, hair, teeth, the chin and the amount of character that comes out under the eyes. A mountain is as uninteresting as the next or a snow flake for that matter. After every 200 shots there are perhaps 5 or fewer that capture it. All the other shots are experimentation trying to capture something that the naked eye sees but the camera does not.
Unhelpful Data
Fuel in Mexico is 50 cents per liter (that's $2.25/gallon)
In Guatemala it is $2.75/gallon
Wash & Fold laundry is $1 per kilogram
A Combi (VW bus shared with others) ride across town is 28 cents
A baguette is 18 cents
Room for two in nothing fancy, but clean is $14 for the night
Dorm room accommodations in a hostel are $4 per night
Excellent plate of food at an Economic Kitchen is $3.75
A taco is 50 cents
Travel
Travel is a place to study death and motion and your own character or lack of it.
On Time and Motivation
The less you do, the less you do. It gets to the point of doing so little that brushing your teeth becomes a relatively big deal, shaving out of the question. Question: where is the balancing point between work and no work for a healthy life?
Over worked. Over rested. I suppose when we grow incurious that spells the end of us in either extreme.
People
The people who know the most seem to do the least.
They only want to hear their own voices, to be heard, to have their voices echo off the poor innocent. Business schemes galore followed by, "Oh, but I can't right now, the economy you know..." Americans whine about money and economy and the Mexican who has to endure this bloated huffer has long been familiar with economic hardship looks upon their poor me song with no sympathy.
The Girl
The girl had no conversation. Next to none. The simplest of questions were met with,"yes" followed by silence. You think it might be you, your chemistry, your humor, then you listen to others try to talk to her and it's, well, the same.
The girl had no conversation in her. Beauty without charm is like food without spices. She must be saving it for somebody. Someday. A rainy day.
Warnings
Paul Theroux said, The warnings filled me with resolve and seemed as hearty to me a salutation. Fear mongering is something people enjoyed doing to me at home, in the Motherland, before I left for Latin America and I find it here again on the road in Mexico. I will admit warnings excite me. The "...do not go here...", or "...it is dangerous in...", phrases have me consulting maps as soon as the conversation is over.
The ones who don't go have the worst to say about a place. Those that do go always tell you to go.
What's Next?
Today is a day for taking things into account. To reflect on the recent past of people and places. To review maps and guide notes from people like Tom. To map out possibilities and let it all influence you. It unfolds and I'm in it.
Travel
Travel requires tremendous energy. Looks easy on the outside. Everything familiar is stripped away. Always moving, having to quickly learn a village or city. To be a stranger everywhere you go. Childlike, defenseless and dim and having to learn a language. Childlike and dependent. The level of concentration to speak a second language is immense, it is also immensely rewarding to communicate in a language that is not you own, the experience fulfills endless curiosity of what you see everyday -none of it familiar.
More Unhelpful Data
I have not looked at a weather report in six months.
Have watched tv twice.
Have not used a digital map like Yahoo or an electronic navigational device like GPS.
Traveled solo 4 times.
Gained what I believe is 10 pounds (about 5kg) on the Mexican diet of tortillas, rice, beans, sweets, brown colored Wonder bread and Coca-Cola. Only my Chiropractor knows how I feel.
Warfare
Matt plays his Gameboy war game with single mindedness -marching through cities on a keyboard with tanks and men. This morning while he played I asked if he was,"Winning their hearts and minds?".
Highwayman
A pack of children perhaps four or five years old caught us at a speed bump (tope in Spanish) on the highway in the countryside of Chiapas by pulling a ragged rope across the road to force a stop and extract a toll under duress. These children were highwaymen without horses. It worked and we came to a complete stop and as soon as we halted those little hands came in through my window, needy hands demanding a peso or 5, I can't remember, so we could continue traveling the highway.
I gave one peso and we were on our way, finding humor in it all. Matt one of the travelers with me reminded me that by handing over that peso I was encouraging begging. I conceded the point that I contributed to habitualizing the act. Emboldened I decided to run all future road blocks these little urchins might erect. I have to hope that when I run the next one that the kid with the rope doesn't have it wrapped around his hand -the worst outcome will be the rope gets tangled up on the bumper of the truck and drags the helpless highwayman down the road.
The image is bad: truck bounding down steep mountain road with small bloody hand dangling in tow, villagers screaming bloody murder. Held up by a pack of five year olds who pull rope across a free road to extract a highwayman's toll.
In the Company of Men
In the company of men we act like boys out in the jungle; we pick and pull at nature around us, stopping to look at something every few feet. We see strange mushrooms, birds with massive beaks eating nuts high up in trees, monkeys that have a terrorizing howl, and cascades of water over limestone formations that take on magical amoebic shapes.
In the company of men. A day in the jungle. One of our group, a man named Shoe, picks, pulls, kicks, breaks and inspects anything in his path. He once was an oil driller in the wilderness of Canada, so I guess he can not help it. Shoe walks on everything leaving a subtle but obvious wake, wherever, he treads. At times the solid concrete limestone formations at the falls don't look safe from his exploratory effects.
Stealing
Stealing looks. Everybody does it. It is an awkward kind of theft, you want to stare to satisfy some deep need. To study and appreciate beauty as if 'she' were a museum piece. You look away in haste, you have stolen a look.
Mexican Women
After six months traveling through Mexico having entered from the north in Tijuana and exited in the south into Guatemala I feel comfortable sharing this observation about Mexican women. Their perfect form is brief, from age 15 to 20 years old, after this approximate age the deterioration is rapid and complete. Nubile bodies transform rapidly into pear shaped ones with plump pumpkin faces. They lose it quick. I suppose lack of exercise and the Mexican diet get them early.
Generalizations are generalizations and I have seen plenty of exceptions, however, the description above holds true more than not.
Guatemala
I am in Guatemala now.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Dispatch Number 13
White Robe
Alone in the jungle eating a mango with chili powder sprinkled over it at the Lost Temple. At Palenque there are hundreds of un-excavated temples like this one throughout the jungle -most of them have been reduced to rock piles. The Lost Temple was cleared of vegetation and has remained remarkably intact. The last of the mango drips from my chin when a man in a white robe with matching white tennis shoes goes through a silent ritual -he touches the walls of the temple, hugs trees, rubs big rocks over his limbs, then stands with hands stretched out wide facing the forest.
Anything is sacred if you want it to be. Even this old limestone building sitting atop a rock pile. A great civilization built this city 1,400 to 1,900 years ago and the jungle reclaimed it completely -as people we only visit it on the most temporary of basis.
The Circle
In the middle of the grand plaza of Palenque white people are dressed in white robes with matching pants and shoes, they sit in a large circle under baking sun trying to find it again. Most of us sit under a large shade tree watching them. Big city people trying to find it again, this time in some modern interpretation of a Maya ritual. In their large circle they look both confused and stoic in their matching red bandannas.
I sit under the shade tree wondering how many carbon credits they used up to fly here. The leader, a Mayan man, also in a white robe leads them. From my comfortable spot under the tree I wonder if this group knows about the human sacrifice the Maya and Aztecs lived by in order to appease the gods of nature -to let the sun rise once more. Trying to find it again under the punishing sun in the midst of the jungle only to return to their burned out lives, to repeat their unnatural ways under the punishing glow of fluorescent lights. Stoic and confused among Maya ruins. Arrogant and aloof back home acting as if they dropped deep into the jungle for some special ritual when in fact they never left the road they came in on.
My mind wonders again...will there be a human sacrifice? How can you take only 'part' of a ceremony and expect to get anything? For lasting impact the whole ceremony should be performed, which most certainly would include a beheading or a human heart ripped out in whole form -then we would have a ceremony with lasting impact. Most of them will return home in 72 hours rejoining others in the misery of routine affected little by their ceremony under the sun, but will talk endlessly to their friends about the circle under the sun. Dead souls acting sanctimonious. Ready made spirituality. A guided tour to an imagined place.
The local tour guides talk to each other as they look on at the man in the white robe ringed by his acolytes wondering how they could start a small business offering the lost a way to find themselves. Anything is sacred if you want it to be.
Alone in the jungle eating a mango with chili powder sprinkled over it at the Lost Temple. At Palenque there are hundreds of un-excavated temples like this one throughout the jungle -most of them have been reduced to rock piles. The Lost Temple was cleared of vegetation and has remained remarkably intact. The last of the mango drips from my chin when a man in a white robe with matching white tennis shoes goes through a silent ritual -he touches the walls of the temple, hugs trees, rubs big rocks over his limbs, then stands with hands stretched out wide facing the forest.
Anything is sacred if you want it to be. Even this old limestone building sitting atop a rock pile. A great civilization built this city 1,400 to 1,900 years ago and the jungle reclaimed it completely -as people we only visit it on the most temporary of basis.
The Circle
In the middle of the grand plaza of Palenque white people are dressed in white robes with matching pants and shoes, they sit in a large circle under baking sun trying to find it again. Most of us sit under a large shade tree watching them. Big city people trying to find it again, this time in some modern interpretation of a Maya ritual. In their large circle they look both confused and stoic in their matching red bandannas.
I sit under the shade tree wondering how many carbon credits they used up to fly here. The leader, a Mayan man, also in a white robe leads them. From my comfortable spot under the tree I wonder if this group knows about the human sacrifice the Maya and Aztecs lived by in order to appease the gods of nature -to let the sun rise once more. Trying to find it again under the punishing sun in the midst of the jungle only to return to their burned out lives, to repeat their unnatural ways under the punishing glow of fluorescent lights. Stoic and confused among Maya ruins. Arrogant and aloof back home acting as if they dropped deep into the jungle for some special ritual when in fact they never left the road they came in on.
My mind wonders again...will there be a human sacrifice? How can you take only 'part' of a ceremony and expect to get anything? For lasting impact the whole ceremony should be performed, which most certainly would include a beheading or a human heart ripped out in whole form -then we would have a ceremony with lasting impact. Most of them will return home in 72 hours rejoining others in the misery of routine affected little by their ceremony under the sun, but will talk endlessly to their friends about the circle under the sun. Dead souls acting sanctimonious. Ready made spirituality. A guided tour to an imagined place.
The local tour guides talk to each other as they look on at the man in the white robe ringed by his acolytes wondering how they could start a small business offering the lost a way to find themselves. Anything is sacred if you want it to be.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Dispatch Number 12 -The Swim
Frontera Corozal where Mexico meets Guatemala on the Southeastern front of Mexico's State of Chiapas, a place of great natural wonder with jungles, rivers and things man made -it was the center of the Maya civilization. In these parts the Usumacinta River is the international boundary. The river and its tributaries were important trade routes for the ancient Maya civilization. Yaxchilan and Piedras Negras, two of the most powerful cities of the Maya Classic Period (200-900 A.D.), lie along its banks.
I have heard more than once it is the 5th largest river in the world, but have been unable to confirm this. However, for self-promoting vain reasons calling it the 5th largest river in the world makes my visit here with Matt Fuller sound big because Matt is about to swim it. Matt has no fear of water and will swim across to the Guatemala side without travel papers and stand on the opposite bank to wave and yell, then swim back to a cold beer for performing the feat.
The headwaters for the Usumacinta are in Guatemala, the river flows 'uphill', north into Mexico. Matt walks to the rivers edge to better assess the swim. From high up on the bank he is confident and says he has swam across rivers the same size and larger. From my position on the upper bank it looks like he can do it.
He is walking back to the truck up on the bank after scouting the river for a good 10-minutes. What will he say?
Turns out we had been looking at an island in the stream mistaking it for Guatemala when it was still part of Mexico. His report was seasoned with caution and an unpleasant description of a very wide river with a strong current that ran over big rocks in several spots. It was too dangerous, but the idea of swimming to Guatemala without 'papers' was a risk we, we'll Matt wanted to take. I don't swim too well.
I have heard more than once it is the 5th largest river in the world, but have been unable to confirm this. However, for self-promoting vain reasons calling it the 5th largest river in the world makes my visit here with Matt Fuller sound big because Matt is about to swim it. Matt has no fear of water and will swim across to the Guatemala side without travel papers and stand on the opposite bank to wave and yell, then swim back to a cold beer for performing the feat.
The headwaters for the Usumacinta are in Guatemala, the river flows 'uphill', north into Mexico. Matt walks to the rivers edge to better assess the swim. From high up on the bank he is confident and says he has swam across rivers the same size and larger. From my position on the upper bank it looks like he can do it.
He is walking back to the truck up on the bank after scouting the river for a good 10-minutes. What will he say?
Turns out we had been looking at an island in the stream mistaking it for Guatemala when it was still part of Mexico. His report was seasoned with caution and an unpleasant description of a very wide river with a strong current that ran over big rocks in several spots. It was too dangerous, but the idea of swimming to Guatemala without 'papers' was a risk we, we'll Matt wanted to take. I don't swim too well.
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