Journal


So in preparation for my upcoming trip to Thailand, I wanted to learn some of the basic phrases. Now I’m well aware of Thailand’s reputation as a place where helpless white men got to get laid and/or married, but I really had no idea how bad it was until I stumbled upon the Thai Talkboard app for the iPad:

The Thai TalkBoard for helpless white men.

Just the phrases they include on their short list is a warning sign: “Are you married?” or “You are a pretty girl.” (or my favorite: “What’s your phone number?”, as if anyone using this app could managed a phone call in Thai…)

Of course, I’ve run into this before. Some years back I grabbed a Lonely Planet French Phrasebook for a trip to Paris, and found it useless beyond eating, drinking, and securing a prostitute. I feel that the Lonely Planet people, like the Thai Talkboard folks, are just playing off of people’s fantasies: that foreign women are so easy you merely have to learn the words to ask. And I did see a lot of coupling happening the bars, though it was usually between a couple of travellers who already spoke the same language.

But it wasn’t the contents of the application itself that raised my eyebrows, rather its reviews. The top two went like this:

Great App *****
My wife is Thai and speaks very little English. This app does a nice job for basic communication…

What?, I think. This guy managed to get married to a woman that he needs an app this simplistic to communicate with? And what did he do before he bought the app? I hate to judge, but that doesn’t sound too romantic to me.

Wrong meaning **
When clicking at “are you married?”, it asks for a phone number instead. Please correct…

Again, ‘What?’ You speak this little Thai, yet you used this app to ask some woman if she was married? Did you say it yourself, or did you just hold it up and press the button, attempting to mesmerise the woman with your electronic gizmo? Of course, considering that the iPad, while common enough here in the states, costs a half-year’s salary in Thailand, that might well have been enough.

So while I won’t be courting any Thai women with a pre-canned, ‘I love you,’ one phrase that I’ll make good use of is, “I need a drink.”

The shape of so many foods that I love:

Torus: bagel
Bagel
Torus: donut
Donut
Torus: Cheerio
Cheerio
Torus: onion ring
Onion Ring
Torus: fried chicken
Fried Chicken
Torus: Cheesel
Cheesel

An acquaintance of mine is heading to Antarctica next week, and I long to join her. It is the same longing that I feel when, in my youth, I read about some boy stealing away from home on a raft. Or, in more adult reading, an adventuresome Casanova making another conquest. I don’t mean that the longing feels the same, I mean there’s same distance between the experience that I long for and what the reality would be like.

I’ve always held high romantic notions about grand empty places, such as Antarctica or the deserts of northern Africa, notions sparked by movies such as Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure (in IMAX) or Lawrence of Arabia. In such picturesque films, even the worst of storms look absolutely inviting. Of course, how much hardship will a professional cinematographer endure just to get his shot? No, the nasty truth is better found in the written word, because to in order to write about something, you need only to survive it. Or, at the minimum, leave your journal in a place where it will be found.

Take The Worst Journey in the World for example (the title proves to be a bit of an understatement.) The book details the hair-raising, Scott-led expedition to the South Pole. It is a chronicle of death that would put SAW V to shame. Nearly everyone dies, to almost no purpose. Scott himself, along with three members of his party, did manage to reach the South Pole—but only to discover that he wasn’t, as planned, the first person to arrive there. No doubt chilled by disappointment, his party froze to death on the return trip.

This isn’t really the stuff dreams are made of. I went over to Amazon and clicked the “Surprise Me!” button for the book and, just by scanning my randomly-picked page, I found this gem: “The temperature was -47f., and I was a fool to take my hands out of my mitts to haul on the ropes…I started away…with all ten fingers frost-bitten.” Having read the book, I can tell you that—from the moment they set foot off the boat—there isn’t a page that doesn’t contain some hardship words struggle to describe; this little bit of frostbite is nothing compared to what comes later.

Another work of warning is The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence’s 784-page tome about his time in the desert during World War I. It is the book on which the movie Lawrence of Arabia is based (and, by based on, I mean, used some of the wittier lines, not necessarily in context.) While the movie does depict hardship, it is a dramatic hardship, the overcoming of which bringing about great glory. For example, the capture of Aquba. In the movie, Peter O’Toole sets out with fifty men on a terrible march across The Nefud, a flat stretch of desert referred to by the locals as “God’s Anvil” because of it’s destructive heat. Upon accomplishing this impossible task, O’Toole doubles his glory by turning back into the desert—just as the sun rises, mind you—to recover a stray member of his party. His reputation as a god-head now secure, he converts a huge army with a single speech and they over-run unsuspecting Aquba in a glorious manslaughter.

In truth, the journey is a lot less dramatic. There’s only a few men at the start of the long journey, a campaign through a string of villages along which they try to convince anyone they meet to join them. Their army is slowly raised as they make their way to the coast, without any epic battle against the heat or the desert. T.E. himself barely participates because he is clutched with fever the whole time. What he describes instead is the never-ending rashes he endures (in the worst places imaginable), and then how the constant thirst makes the rashes seem calming. To top it all off, camels reportedly smell really bad, as does everyone on them. As for crossing God’s Anvil, they apparently never went anywhere near The Nefud.

So I should know better. But when I imagine myself in Antarctica, I see myself wandering alone in the complete peace that is only possible when you are hundreds of miles from even a hint of civilization. The snow is packed hard and flat, and the sun is warm on my back. I wear the lightest of backpacks because around mid-afternoon—when I’m a little peaked—I plan to stop at a coffee shop, curl up and do a little reading. I’ll sit around until I’m bored, then refill my Arctic-grade Thermos (the one that can keep coffee warm for hours at -47f—and such temperatures aren’t really that bad, you know, once you get used to it.)

So this Antarctica of my mind doesn’t really exist. The reality is, if I went there, I would be crowded in some shelter, small and cramped because it takes a lot of fuel to warm the place, and fuel must travel a long way to get there. Outdoor tasks would be determined by lottery, with the loser earning the privilege. And, since I agree with Baron Munchausen that is better to live in a happy fantasy than a bland reality, at the same time my friend is flying around the globe for her remote adventure, I’ll be seeking my own down at the Grand Lake Theater.

It seems to me that
men who drive trucks like that,
beat their women
and end up fat.

It’s Sunday. I went out at the park, walked around the lake. Though ringed with a busy road, the lake is mostly peaceful. The path is set far enough away that, for those of use accustomed to city noises, you barely even notice the traffic.

About three-quarters of the way around the lake, I passed a protest march that was thankfully going in the other direction. Now, by protest march I mean a odd mix of about six or seven people, with another four people whom I don’t believe had anything to do with the protest, but were really just stuck behind them.

Like all protests, some of the people had signs. I think there were three. I only remember two. One said “LIARS!” which seemed like an aggressive start. Below that, it said, “Impeach the Liars!”

I came up with a couple scenarios about the person carrying this sign. The first one was they made this sign a long, long time ago. After all, when is the last time any of us thought seriously about impeachment? I think it briefly sashayed across my brain when the democrat’s took congress last year. But I quickly decided impeachment hearings at that point would have been a disappointment. After all, the democrats fought for six years for that toe-hold of power. Seems like it would be better they do something positive instead of bogging everything down with in-fighting.

No, like many of my peers, I have adopted the win-by-waiting attitude as far as the president goes. I do occasionally indulge a fantasy where, after he leaves the office, the next administration tries him on war crimes. But I know better. Look at Nixon. Look at Reagan. Got a damn airport named after him. People get nostalgic about everything past, be it the abusive lover or the bad president. Nixon got us out of Vietnam, for which we are thankful. Reagan made America the powerhouse economy that allows even the poorest citizen to buy inflatable Santas for their yard. Everyone did something good, once.

So option two, after laziness, is that this protester didn’t feel the way I did. That they actually thought there was something to gain by starting impeachment proceedings this close to the end of Bush’s presidency. (at the time of this writing, three hundred and eight-six days. Plus two hours and eleven minutes.) Perhaps they wanted revenge. But no matter which option you choose, they are definitely the sort of person I always get stuck talking to at a cocktail party.

Of course, this person wasn’t the one who really annoyed me. The annoying one was carrying the sign that said, “Honk for Peace.”

Who could resist this simple request? Hell yes, you want peace. So you honk. You honk enthusiastically. And the next person? They want peace, too. They want it even more. And the person after that? They’re not going to be outdone. In fact, they are going to win! They are going to honk the shit out of some peace.

In the split second you’re driving by, you don’t really have time to think about it. Maybe you never think about it ever. American drivers, especially in California, are famous for giving their brains backseat to their hubris. But that’s another story.

My point is this: people drive by in their cars and they honk. A steady stream of horns surrounds the protesters. They are honking for peace, and they are raising a ruckus.

Now I’m not opposed to making noise to get what you want, but I do think it would help if there was even some slight possibility that this noise might help something. Anything. For example, it sucks to get your eardrums pierced by a fire engine siren. But those firepeople are running off to do something good, so I’m not suffering in vain.

But I can’t even begin to describe how sure I am that destroying the serenity of a park in Oakland is not going to affect our government’s war policy. In fact, the only possible benefit of all this irritating noise is that some yahoo rushing off to a post-Christmas sale is going to feel like they’ve done their part in stopping the war.

With well-organized opposition like this, I don’t see how we ever ended up at war in the first place.

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