Greenhorn of Africa (Part Four)

A New York Navel-Gazer Looks at Botswana, South Africa

and Mozambique by Way of London

By Kyle Thomas Smith

Part Four

August 26, 2009 – Tubu Tree, Botswana; Savuti, Botswana

Morning/Afternoon

Julius goes on morning safari.  I stay in, read, write.  All come back w/ news that, ~ 1 mile from camp, carcass of impala hung from tree.  Lioness hunted it, tore out jugular, dragged it to tree & hung it up for stripping.  Also, saw rhino, which we saw yesterday.

Graham discusses how mating season w/ lions goes.  Lion mounts lioness, she allows sperm deposit but then whips him to ground.  2 mins later, he’s on another lioness and, 2 mins after that, another.  Sounds like trip to Amsterdam to me.

Graham gives me copy of mystery he’s finished reading, Blood Moon by Garry Disher.  Says it’s set near Melbourne.  No contender for Booker Prize.  Just good holiday read.  Also mentions liking work of Australian crime fiction writer Peter Temple.  Never heard of either.  Want to read more crime fiction, again, to learn plots.  Want to learn how to write better fiction.  Julia mentions book group favorite, The Slap by Greek writer named Christos Tsiolkas.  Coming away from Tubu Tree w/ extensive reading list that includes Booker Prize winner whom Graham regrets telling she couldn’t write.

Lunch is on.  Buffet-style again: beef stew, rice, beans=basic.  Spend last few minutes @ camp observing Giles.  He talks about how Australia commemorates wintry aspect of Xmas with July 25 celebration, which coincides w/ subequitorial winter.  Hope he had happy Xmas last month and will have another in December.  Newlyweds from England (guy) & Australia (woman), both living in Singapore, sit on own side of table.  We don’t interfere w/ honeymoon – those always end too soon.

Julius & I say goodbye to Jacky, Justin, Giles, Graham & Julia.  Julius has Graham & Julia’s email.  Both want us to keep them apprized of when my book will be in print.  Well, gotta get a publisher first, but Tubu Tree was enough to take my mind off anxiety around that.  W/ 6” of sunscreen on skin, clap safari hat on head, climb in jeep, where bags already waiting, & drive off to Okavango Delta airstrip w/ Johnny.

Once there, we wait for plane to Savuti Camp.  Plane is late.

Waiting around in shade but hot out.  Julius takes out iPhone, clicks on iPod, turns on Exile on Main Street, my favorite album, which he downloaded.  Asks Johnny if he likes this kind of music.  W/ most pleasant smile he can muster, Johnny says, “I like softer music.”

Julius puts on La Boheme. Johnny likes it.  I say La Boheme = one of stupidest plots in opera – Rodolfo confesses everlasting love for Mimi (chick he met 10 mins ago), she leaves him next day & comes back to his garret dying of tuberculosis many mos later & Rodolfo says he’ll never love again.  Julius insinuates that I’m a churl/cad for thinking this.

Charter Flight arrives.  Say goodbye to Johnny; show our appreciation for his stellar hospitality & savoir-faire around game parks.  Don’t know how any camp will measure up to Tubu Tree.  Board plane, bracing myself slightly but not so scared of flight after chat w/ Alan.  12 passengers going to/from various camps on board.  Pilot gives pre-flight instrucs.  Mentions “comfort bag” in front of each seat.  Euphemisms never cease, do they?

Doing pretty well on way to Linyanti Marsh.  Only close eyes through ~ ½ trip as plane sways aboveground.  But woman next to me reaches for “comfort bag,” sticks head in.  Fear chain reaction, praying plane lands soon.  Prayer answered & turns out woman never needed to puke in comfort bag.

S. African guide named Ant picks us up on way to Savuti Camp, located @ confluence of Savuti Channel & Linyanti River.  B/f leaving Linyanti Marsh airstrip, Ant mentions has surprise for us.  Says we’ll be meeting special guest.  Gets on CB, asks colleague, “Is she still there?”  Colleague says, yes.  Ant says, “Can you tell us who we’re going to see?”

Julius and others answer, “Madonna?”  Even Ant says = reasonable guess in this phase of pop singer’s life but, “No,” he says, “Better than Madonna.”

Jeep pulls out, travels ~ 1 mi. over to brush, where lioness sleeps w/ her cub.  Snapping pix all around her, she doesn’t flinch.  Amazing how animals not in least intimidated by jeeps.

No natives greet us w/ song upon arrival @ camp, except for non-singing woman named Carrie, native Botswanan who’s whiter than I am.  Don’t know her story, except she says Afrikaans parents settled in Botswana ~ time of her birth & she’s never lived anywhere else.  Camp appears to be 3 Xs size Tubu Tree w/ log ramps gliding for city block in network of deluxe cabins.

Staff takes us to common area, overlooking Savuti channel, where few dozen guests from America & Europe congregate, drinking Iced Tea, munching on lemon cookies & baklava.  We sign indemnity form like we did @ Tubu Tree, tho don’t fear mortal injury since having experienced no incidents when driving right up to wild animals.  Woman who was about to use comfort bag has just arrived, finds me, introduces herself as Jane from Seattle; says I looked ready to grab my comfort bag too.  I deny it.

Our cabin looks out on to Linyanti River, which reflects moss-green marshes & weeping willows.  2 Xs big as Tubu Tree cabin.  Canopied bed w/ mosquito netting, looks like accessory in sultry moment in old French-Indochina, tho danger of mosquitoes this time of year = minimal.  (Mosquitoes = annoying in America but often disease-ridden in Africa.)  Open shower on concrete floor.  Must keep valuables in safe, tho.  No danger of thieves, but squirrels get in through slats & gnaw thru bags.

Afternoon Safari

Before embarking on afternoon safari, I have a chat w/ guide-trainee from neighboring village named Tony.  Says being accepted to guide program = competitive.  Out of the 4 applicants, only 2 made it.  Tony obviously hasn’t experienced NYC-style competitive.  He must be ~ 19 yrs old.  Farthest outside Botswana he’s been = Zimbabwe.  Wants so much to go to America.

Says will lose most of $ to $-changers when comes to exchanging Botswanan pula for US dollars.

In jeep w/ 3 people from D.C. – Frank, Ann, Mike.  Frank = lawyer, Mike’s friend.  Mike = lawyer, Ann’s husband.  Ann = lawyer-cum-executive coach.  Ask re: her practice.  Says focuses heavily on Myers-Brigg.  I’m an INFJ.  She’s the opposite – an ESTP.  We spend rest of ride discussing theories of personality.

See leopard, rhinos, jackals, elephants, wildebeest (stay hunched all day long).  Most engaging of all, tho, our jeep & 2 other jeeps pull up to lions feasting on buffalo:

Pix snapping all around them & couldn’t care less.

Then there were the hippos.  They can dunk their heads under water for 8 to 10 minutes at a time:

And the Savuti sunset:

Dinner

Buffet-style dinner @ Savuti.  Hummus w/ pita, beef stew, chicken, pork dishes (latter I ignore).  Drinking hulking glass of Merlot.  Sit w/ Ann & husband Mike.

Discuss Bernie Madoff.  How could he get away w/ it for so long?  His sons turned him in.  Why?  Was it family arrangement?  Madoff taking whole sentence to clear rest of family?  Another Botswanan guide named Chet hasn’t heard news.  Wants to know who Madoff is & what he did.

Seems shocked that one can make so much $ in America like America.  Talks about how he wants to come to America, just like Tony.  Some former guests from LA invited Chet.  He’s saving up.

Meet Loku, a camp employee from just outside Sheffield, England (birth name: Nick).  Comes up in conversation he doesn’t understand American obsession w/ always having to get more degrees/letters after one’s name.  Turns out, tho, he graduated from Oxford.  After college, went to work in mktng dept of London Times.  Couldn’t’ve been more miserable, so logged on to Internet to look up jobs in Africa.  Found NGO that worked to preserve rhino population of Africa.  After lil back-&-forth, found himself on plane bound for Botswana & got job.  In course of working there, he met people @ various camps, who asked him to help out w/ some work here & there.  Work accumulated to the point where Savuti asked him to come on staff.  Been in Botswana 13 yrs, doesn’t know what’s next & doesn’t care too much.

So nice to meet successful rat-race refugee.  Julius & I drink champagne w/ him till about midnight, talking about favorite areas of London & naughty things that naughty Brits get up to.  Too stunned by Botswana’s beauty to discuss it right now.

August 27, 2009 – Savuti Camp, Botswana

Lunch

Let Julius go ahead w/o me on morning safari.  Wrote journals, read Elegance of Hedgehog instead.  Saw squirrel in cabin.  Don’t mind.  Just want make sure it has way out, don’t want going crazy & tearing things up w/ sharp lil claws.  @ lunch, jump in jeep w/ Loku.  Driving out to lunch site miles away.  Had to change lunch site @ last minute.; herd of elephants showed up & might upset balance b/t man & nature if we sat @ tables & ate w/ them.

Loku says China ~ dominant in world economy.  Chinese taking over Africa.  Telling local governments they’ll build hospitals, schools & highways in exchange for land.  Many questions if they’re making good on their part of the bargain.  America’s economy still in recession, tho.  Is America a crumbling empire?  We discuss, don’t know, maybe.  Whatever happens, our old way of doing business = untenable.  Both applaud ourselves for eschewing corporate culture.

As we speak, herd of elephants marches into a gigantic mud puddle to our left.  2 are young & injured.  Both have severed trunks & bandied legs.  Hyenas probably got them.  Loku has seen them out here before, didn’t think they’d last this long.  Older elephants form circle around them, feed them branches & leaves from trees, ensure safety in herd.

Several elephants roll around in mud, let it bake on to their hides in sun.

Loku & I drive to new picnic site.  Others pull up in jeeps, including Julius.  Lunch buffet much same as yesterday, except for addition of beef kebabs, chickpeas, & omelet option.  Again, I opt for St. Louis Lager.  Julius & I sit @ end of table.  As we eat & talk to many of the other 20 or so guests, the elephant herd from mud puddle crosses over hills & marches w/i only a dozen or so yards of us.

The matriarch sounds her trunk-horn.  Trees shake.  Sensing we’re just picnickers, not hunters, she gives signal to our guide Ant that we’ll get along fine as long as we stay on our side of the mud lake next to us.  10 or so elephants tumble into mud, roll around, frolic, stand in sun.  Avoiding incident, we clear away from table, give them space.  No incident.  Herd goes about its business, takes last stand in sun, & walk over to other hill, injured young in tow.

Series continues with Part Five: Johannesburg

Greenhorn of Africa (Part Three)

A New York Navel-Gazer Looks at Botswana, South Africa

and Mozambique by Way of London

By Kyle Thomas Smith

Part Three

3:00 pm – 6:30 pm

3 ½ hour safari.  King-sized elephant w/ penis dragging like gimpy third leg.  Johnny informs us elephant = old.  Says male elephants kicked out of herd to wander alone in old age.  Nature has it that they roam slow & alone, chomping on trees; gradually, molars fall out, can’t masticate; die of starvation – all nature’s plan.  Elephant moseys in front of jeep.  Barely notices us.  Drags trunk, sways head, plods along, outcast from herd after all these years.  Looks like he accepts lot, tho, along w/ imminence of own demise – unlike us humans (hell, I’m even wearing Neutrogena Age Fighter hydrating lotion).

Drive along.  Roll over more bushes.  Sidle up to herd of zebras, standing in fan formation so if lions spy, they can stump them by running in separate directions in alluvial black and white.

See baboons share same space w/ them, as do impalas.  Buffalo &  wildebeest too.

All potential victims, strength in #’s.

Only, young impalas ≠ safe.  Baboons might decide to kill for kicks.  Johnny relates torturous story of young impala cornered by chimp who terrorized it for hours before killing it.  Ask him to stop imitating impala’s fearful cries.

Wonder how Johnny does it, living here all his life.  Knows nothing else.  Crickets & frogs sound like thunder.

Seriously detoxing from NYC now but don’t miss in least.  Exquisite African sunset flames across horizon @ ~ 5:30.  Johnny pulls over into grassy patch, scouts out region.  All clear.  All exit jeep.  Some excuse ourselves behind bush to heed nature’s call.  Funny how same behavior would spring us into police station in Manhattan.  Can take off jungle hat now sun’s going down.

Johnny opens jeep’s grill & takes out mini-bar stocked w/ beer & wine.  Julius, Julia, Graham & Giles have chardonnay.  I opt for St. Louis Lager from Kgalagadi Brewery in Gaborone, Botswana.  When you thank Johnny for drink, he says, “Pleasure.”  (No, it’s more like, “Plesherrrr…” like Cat Woman.  Quite sexy.  Been hearing that a lot around camp – heard it in Jo’burg too.  So much more sensual than “You’re welcome.”)  All standing w/ drinks now as sun goes down b/h African wilderness, where grass looks like parched stalks.  Graham says he’s lawyer, not barrister.  Didn’t know there’s difference.  Lived in England briefly, taught @ University of Warwick before returning to Australia, finishing teaching career & opening private practice.  Julia volunteers @ Melbourne Zoo; a biologist by training but takes lots of Continuing Ed classes @ U of Melbourne – far-flung courses like Paleontology, Ancient Greek Culture & Civ, & History of Mesopotamia. Renaissance lady.

Discuss American politics.  Still feeling everyone out.  What do they think of Obama?  Offer praise, see if they nod.  They do.  Graham says all Australia was hooked on 2008 U.S. electoral campaigns – & even before that, when Barack & Hillary were in blood feud.  Sarah Palin’s absurdity was plain as day to whole world, couldn’t fathom her appeal in US.  Tell them we’re stuck w/ her now; wish we could just have Tina Fey’s impressions instead.

Julia & Graham speak of enormous relief that fell over Australia when Obama won.  Told them I’ll never forget where I was, watching CNN on tenterhooks w/ Julius in our library, historic!  Easily one of the highlights of my life.  Both Julia & Graham’s sons recently graduated from U of Melbourne; like many Australians, lived @ home while in college; one would come home from school every afternoon, run to turn on CNN to see new dev’ments in US politics.  Am always fascinated by how every event in American life becomes world news.

Talk about attacks from right.  Tea Parties, for instance.  Boston Tea Party was re: “No Taxation Without Representation.”  These people have plenty of representation in congress.  No president since Lincoln has incurred this amount of fury, not even Nixon, who got out while the gettin’ was good.  Could it have something to do w/ Obama’s color?  Most on right are smart enough to deny it, but nothing rings truer to me.

Still more feeling out to do.  Time to bring up marriage equality & cast out any doubts re: whether Julius & I are partners.  Must get this est’d if we’re to make friends.  No one seems fazed.  Say Australia has marriage equality.  As natural as sunset/daybreak to them.  Wish same for us.

For however dynamic our conversation w/ Graham & Julia, Giles captures my attention most.  He barely speaks word unless we direct our ?’s/remarks to him.  Late 60s, white walrus mustache, puts on dapper windbreaker as temperature chills.  Like elephant, lost molars too; jaw not as dexterous as used to be, takes long time to answer ?’s, also seems to stutter – wonder if this stunted Giles’ social life.

Turns out, tho Australian, Giles didn’t know Graham or Julia before coming to camp.  Came alone, dreamed of going on safari for decades; saved up for it.  (Me: opportunity just fell into my lap.)  Retired from job as accountant for shipping co.  Born in India, father = British official, but family moved to Australia.  Has distinct “Eleanor Rigby” vibe.  Comes out in course of conversation, he never married.  Don’t know if he’s “confirmed bachelor” of yore (w/ all attendant implications) or if he was just too shy to talk to women or too unconfident to feel he had anything to offer.  Has 2 sisters living near where Graham once taught in Warwick, England, but doesn’t like England, so he doesn’t go see them; only went to London once & found it gray, depressing.

Again, when we don’t address him directly, Giles hangs his head & seems to fade into grass behind him, so we all do our best to include him.  Comes out Giles used to go on lots of trips by himself.

Went to Alaska & Antarctica to see birds, penguins & whales.  Wants to travel more but economy hasn’t come back & hasn’t recouped losses from modest retirement investments.

Watching Giles, I’m inundated w/ waves of sadness.  I know loneliness, know how much it hurts; before Julius, I knew all too well what it was to live solitary life; sometimes worry, if something were to happen to Julius and/or to us, would my only option be to wander off like old elephant until legs buckle & I expire?

Giles & Graham = ~ same age but Giles doesn’t look to have as much time left.  Maybe b/c he’s found less to live for: doesn’t have life companion or 2 sons like Graham.  Will his funeral be like E. Rigby’s?  (Sometimes worry mine will.)  Will his 2 sisters come down for it from England?  (My siblings prob’ly wouldn’t bother.)  Or will they not visit him in same way he doesn’t visit them now?  Earth swallows people like Giles up in time.  They pass thru anonymously & vanish.  Still, I’m glad they’re alive.  Been long time since seen such self-effacement.  Not everybody has to be fame-seeker.

Dinner

Candles & torches blazing all around camp.  Justin calls me over, points out hyena on nighttime hunt.

It looks up @ us, scurries into thick of trees.  Go behind bar, pour myself glass goblet of Malbec.  Stand @ edge of deck.  Full campfire burns in stone circle below.  Look out over fields.  Impalas gone.  Must’ve scurried away when saw hyena; am sure they know other predators on way to dinner too.

Justin & Jacky ask us to come to dinner table, announce surprise.  Lights go low.  Singing, stomping, clapping emanating from log ramp off to side of dark dining-room entrance.  Language is prob’ly Zulu.  (At least, I think that’s tribal language here.)  Enter main room.  Long tribal dance ensues, chanting & call-and-response, all that, imagine it’s anthropologist’s dream.

Soon shaman in heavy mask, frippery – frightening as faces of Tibetan protector deities – dances in front of us w/ staff decked w/ feathers, beads & seashells.  Lots of yelling, stomping, cackling.  Gets rise out of us.  Singers & dancers file out.  Presenter explains, in local tribes, when a man (says, “a man,” but might/might not apply to women) is afflicted with illness, he will dance full-out until he reaches state ecstatic enough to let in healing spirits.  What if he’s too sick to dance, tho?  Presenter leaves before I can ask.

Host explains we’ll be following Botswanan tradition in camp tonight: women must serve men dinner.  Julius & I look @ each other in terror!  Guy’s lucky no American women heard him say that!  Remembering my former boss Aurie Pennick.  Tradition or no tradition, if she heard guy say that, he’d be wearing dinner! Yet Julia & Jacky comply w/ “just-this-once” kind of ceremony.  Julius & I thank women profusely, fearing for necks as our culture has taught us.

Dinner consists of Bogobe (porridge); Seswaa (meat dish); Chicken Stew; cabbage; sweet potatoes; lamb; lots of rice and lethodi beans.  Ask dietary restrictions b/f meals (come to think of it, so do Canadian restaurants).  Told them no venison (feel bad for poor deers); no pork (don’t like); no lamb (poor lil lambs); no rabbit (cute as cats, can’t have it).  All well-prepared, tasty.  Dessert: Flan & vanilla pudding.

Learn a lot re: Jacky & Justin over dinner.  Both in 20s, been married 18 mos.  Met working cruise ship sailing both American coasts.  Jacky = from Afrikaans area of Pretoria, S. Africa.  Justin = from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; of Irish/English descent.  3 wks after meeting @ work, both got assigned to separate ships, separate routes.  Both tried negotiating w/ co.; couldn’t get terms accepted, both resigned to be together.  Following wk, Justin proposed in JFK airport, Jacky accepted.  Flew to S. Africa.  Say they eloped, but Jacky’s parents = witnesses @ ceremony, so have to check definition of “elope.”  Went back to Canada.  Tho known for open-door immig. policy, wouldn’t let Jacky into country even as Justin’s wife.  Had to prove 2 or 3 yrs. of marriage.  Went back to S. Africa.  Gov’t wouldn’t recognize marriage, even after legal ceremony few months before.  Had to prove more time t/g to live there too.  Went to Mozambique.  Got bad jobs in hospitality industry.  Quit.  Heard re: Botswana.  Work @ camp 7 ds/wk; get 1 mo. vacation every 3 mos.  Meantime, meet fascinating guest from all over world, like us!

Find out from Justin that Edmonton = only city in world w/o rats.  I’m from Chicago & live in NYC, so don’t know rat-free feeling.  Told him we were in Alberta, Canada in July.  Met up w/ Julius in Calgary where he was working for 5 days.

Not impressed w/ Calgary, where stores close by 5 on wkdys, but then went to Banff & Lake Louise.  Some of most spectacular sites on earth!  Showed pix on Iphone.

Justin said Banff & Lake Louise = popular tourist destinations.  Said I never heard of either before going.  Americans don’t hear a lot re: Canada & it’s damned shame.  Incredibly impressive country: people kind, gentle – not bent on “making it” like we are in NYC or LA – no gun problems,

the Toronto police dogs are beagles for Chrissake!

Nighty Night

Only 9:30 pm but we’ve seen all sights for day.  Rest of guests turning in.  Julius & I head back to cabin.  Complimentary champagne bottle sits waiting w/ 2 champagne glasses w/ sugar-frosted rims & sugar-valentines on front.  Julius & I dim already dim ceiling lights & uncork champagne.

August 25, 2009 – Tubu Tree Camp, Botswana

Morning – 3:30 to Noon

Wake up @ 3:30 to get writing/meditation done b/f 5:30 wake-up knock on cabin door.  (No big deal.  Don’t have to report to work, so…) Julius wakes up w/ knock.  Both shower & I rub sunscreen even on unexposed parts – not taking chances.  All gathered round bkfst table ~ 6 am.  Choice of wheat biscuits; Oatmeal; Wheaties; Special K; Strawberry Yogurt; Peach Yogurt; Granola; orange juice, papaya juice, milk, coffee, tea.

Johnny already @ camp for while.  His home’s nearby, left late @ night, back to work @ 5am.  Same w/ rest of staff.  Hospitality = huge work but still better than 80 hr/wk in Midtown law firm.

Jacky & Justin eat w/ us.  Justin is learning Afrikaans in case they ultimately settle in Pretoria.  Watches Afrikaans soap opera to learn.  Wretched but useful show.  Not much TV reception in Tubu Tree but sometimes get DVDs of TV series.

Graham & Julia suggest Madmen.  Julius & I have been renting Madmen discs.  Characters such despicable, sexist, hypocritical assholes but can’t stop watching.

Talk about my grudge ag. Don Draper’s WASPy wife, Betty, who somehow got thru life w/o learning words “thank you.”  Julia feels Betty =  far more anguished & complex character than I do.

Oh, and gay character, Salvatore Romano, so unpersuasive!  Tell everyone, “He walks around like Liberace & he doesn’t think people are gonna notice?!”

Jacky tells me she’ll remember me forever for that one line alone. Just calls ’ems as I sees ’ems.

Head out on 3 ½ hour safari w/ Giles, Julia & Julius.  (Graham stays behind to read mystery novels & unwind before presentation he’s giving @ labor conference in Sydney next wk.)

See giraffes that have tick birds feeding on them.  Giraffe chomps on leaves, never minding birds.  See wildebeest, impalas, baboons, zebras, elephants.

Have to admit, patience wearing thin.  Fail to see why we have to stop 20 mins. to observe elephant that’s same as last one.  But everyone else  = enraptured.  Am to some extent but keep thinking should be more.  Wish I was more like Julius.

He looks up every one of 10,000 birds in Sibley Birds of Africa book. We see fish-eagle, storks, ostriches, herons, ibises, African darter, & malachite kingfisher.

Hard for me to stay glued to nature after lifetime focus on modern media and self-analysis.

Am grateful when we head back to camp.  Roaring through crackly sun-bleached grass.  Stop @ shady picnic area where Botswanan staff greet us w/ another song.

Graham also standing there w/ glass of guava juice.  Came along w/ Justin after putting good dent in book he’s reading.  Lunch set up.  Omelet option, bow tie pasta, chickpeas, green salad w/ peppers, sausage.  I choose pasta, chickpeas, salad.  Have another St. Louis Lager.

Ask Graham re: mystery novels.  Says they’re light reads, entertainment, welcome distractions.  I used to have high standards for lit.  Now I see even writing a book as creditable feat – unless your name is Rush Limbaugh or Anne Coulter, in which case, don’t bother.  Graham tells me he was once supervisor of associate named M.J. Hyland, said he used to tear up her law briefs & tell her she couldn’t write.  Says joke was on him, tho: she ended up getting shortlisted for Booker Prize for Carry Me Down.  Made me feel better.  I once had colleague who impugned my writing abilities.  He got fired but still want to hear he’s licking latrines in hell.

Mention that I read Malcolm Gladwell’s The Outliers. Gladwell contends that one only achieves proficiency @ craft after 10,000 hrs of practice.  Mozart started @ 7 but didn’t begin writing great symphonies til 20.  Most compelling, tho, Gladwell talks about how Beatles went to Hamburg as somewhat mediocre musicians.  Hamburg strip clubs, where they played, made bands play for 8 hr shifts.  Gave Beatles ample practice: over period of 4 yrs in Hamburg, they did 1,200 shows.  By time returned to Liverpool, they’d developed unprecedented sound.  If they’d stayed in Liverpool, tho, they wouldn’t have had as much practice.  Without Hamburg opp, they wouldn’t’ve become gods they were, acc to Gladwell.

Julia talks about how she’s part of 3 book clubs.  Keeps her in practice as reader.  Unlike so many book clubs, members in her group finish & discuss books in minute detail.  Asks if I’ve read Steve Toltz.  I cringe in bitterest envy.  Yes, I have.

Graham starts saying we should one day go to Kings Canyon in Australia, whose valley is accessible only by helicopter.  In fact, when they went, helicopter had to do all sorts of Evil Knievel stunts to make it down narrow cleavage.  This = enough for me to decline; say had hard enough time on charter flight to Okavango Delta.  Graham goes on re: Kings Canyon.  Waterfalls = luscious but w/ crocodiles.  In 1960s, American actress visited, got drunk & decided to swim from one bank to another, giggling & hiccupping as she did her strokes.  Crocodile nabbed her=end of her career/life & forest ranger’s license.  Vacation spot sounding less desirable by minute.

Dinner

Done w/ afternoon safari.  Someone new @ camp, reading novel called The Gargoyle in lounge area.  Introduce ourselves.  Olive-skinned man named Alan.  Says he’s a pilot who brought honeymooner couple in on one of the propeller crafts we flew in on; too dark to fly out, so has to spend night.  Ask what book’s about.  Says it’s about porn star who finished shoot & drives along California mountainside, blind drunk.  Bottle of bourbon on lap falls to car floor; reaches down to pick up & drives off cliff.  Car thumps all over jagged rocks, catches fire, which spreads w/ help of dribbling puddles of flammable bourbon.  Rescued from wreck, covered head to foot w/ 3rd degree burns, paralyzed from waist down.  Porn-star looks gone (turns out it was str8 porn, tho, where guys = seldom attractive), has death wish (as if he didn’t have one right before accident).  Plans to hoist his wheelchair on ledge of one of top floors of L.A. hotel, climb back into chair & get slobbering drunk; put his head through noose suspended from window-cleaner hook outside window; stick shotgun in mouth; light another bourbon bottle on fire on lap; & pull trigger after budging chair off ledge.  This way, sure to die dramatically; looks grotesque as gargoyle, so might as well fall like one from ledge, plus, while on fire = bound to commit posthumous arson & take others w/ him, which = one in eye of meaningless universe.  Only, he meets woman outside hospital who claims to be clairvoyant & past-life regressionist & says she’s had many lives w/ porn star.  The Gargoyle explores her putative memories along w/ her attempts to nurse amoral pornographer back to health & moral sobriety.  After giving rundown of book, Alan politely excuses himself & goes back to reading w/ wolfish relish.  Says all pilots in region are slavering over Gargoyle & passing it around.  Doesn’t sound like book for me, but still want to read since feel need to develop wilder storylines in my own fiction.

Dinner

Camp no longer risking Amazonian attack by asking women to serve men @ dinner.  Now all go up buffet-style.  Spread similar to last night: steak, lamb, Bogobe (porridge), spinach, steak, carrots, zucchini, celery.  Every now & then, Botswanan woman does shrill tribal call.  Wish she would stop.  Drinking more Malbec.

Talk more to Alan.  Says was pilot for Continental Airlines in Houston.  Wound up in same trick bag as most pilots in this economy.  Fewer fliers = fewer flights & less intriguing routes.  Felt call to come to Africa to fly.  Came on vacation, asked around re: pilot jobs, got one in Botswana.  Fiancée = flight attendant, still in Houston.  Salary in Botswana doesn’t cover cost of mortgage back in Texas, so had to sublet.  Fiancée cashes in discount ticket & frequent flier miles & meets up w/ him every couple months in Jo’burg.  Somehow make it work.

Confess to Alan fear of small-craft planes.  I’m no aviophobe but I’m only used to large commercial carriers.  Alan looks down, nods, can’t tell if he’s annoyed or sympathetic or both.  Refer to Miracle on Hudson & how I flashed back to it when our own pilot mentioned having to negotiate bird traffic.  He responds by giving detailed account of how that kind of twin-engine failure = extremely rare.  Also, of all emergencies pilots must prepare for, that is last on list & not enough hrs in day to learn.  Reassures me worst could happen in such scenario on charter flight = windshield bathed in bird blood; wipers would slap away.  Also, chance of engine failure & crash landing = chance of bottom of car falling out on routine drive down highway.  Also, most pilots for safari camps = highly experienced & used to work for major airlines, but, for whatever reason, came to live in bush. Feel better re: next series of flights.

Back in Cabin

Kick Julius’ ass in Scrabble, mostly b/c I spell “ox” & X is worth 8 points.  Fanciest word I use in whole game = “agog.”  Sleep soundly after whoop-ass.

Greenhorn of Africa (Part Two)

A New York Navel-Gazer Looks at Botswana, South Africa

and Mozambique by Way of London

By Kyle Thomas Smith

Part Two

August 23, 2009 – Flight from Heathrow to Johanesburg

8:00 am flight to Jo’burg. Wake up @ 3:30 to get morning pages & meditation done. 11 hr flight. Reading Steve Toltz’s Fraction of the Whole. Genius. Total fucking genius. 320 pages into it, realize author is 7 or 8 yrs younger than me. I despise upstarts/wunderkinds. I live in a city full of them. Put book down forever.

Plane cruises over Morocco.

Watch Notes on a Scandal. Like movie better than book – much less bombastic. Judie Dench’s character = such a freak. I grew up around inordinate # of sociopaths & narcissists. Know the type.

Read Barbara Ueland’s If You Want to Write. 80^th Anniversary edition or something like that. She hated braggadocio writers almost as much as I do. States disdain for zingy copywriters & precious mag columnists of her day. Loves Van Gogh, Checkhov – sensitivity makes them consummate artists in her book. Thinks D.H. Lawrence a dirty bastard. I happen love them all. Van Gogh’s letters to Theo = heartrendingly exquisite. Will read them again when get back to NYC.

Last couple hours of flight, watch The Who live @ Isle of Wight, 1970. Don’t understand why Isle didn’t get same att: as Woodstock & Altamont. More people were @ it. Documentary not as good, tho. Bored by Who performance until Tommy medley. Come out swinging then. Worth the watch.

(Side note: Excellent Who clip of “Quick One While He’s Away” on The Rolling Stones’ Rock N’ Roll Circus (1968). Variety show reflects Stones’ proclivity for shooting themselves in foot @ height of career, but Who’s performance = stand-out.)

After Nighttime Landing

Coming to Africa w/o expectations. Jo’burg has one of highest crime rates in world. Waiting for shuttle to Mondior Concorde. Mountain Travel Sobek guide has to ward off encroaching parasitic/unlicensed drivers. Hotel = high security. Told most residential areas = gated = understandable, given theft/murder rates but = tragic, given gates = artifact of apartheid. Room is notch above Spartan; has TV but mostly only S. African variety shows, all in Afrikaans.

J & I go to pizzeria next to Emperor Palace Casino (attached to Mondior) for late-night dinner. Drink wonderful bottle of local Merlot called Fat Bastard – can’t get it in States. Pizzeria playing Queen’s “Bicycle Song.” Never understood Queen’s appeal. (“Under Pressure” = brilliant, but mostly Bowie.) Knew woman who said that, in 70s, her libido went ballistic whenever she saw Freddy Mercury live. Said not even handlebar mustache threw her off. Whaa?! To me, he’s indistinguishable from Village People. Also know African-American woman in Chicago who loved Queen but stopped listening & threw out tapes when she discovered they played Sun City during Apartheid. Will never forget being 11 y.o. & watching them rock Wembley @ Live Aid. But, even back then, didn’t understand why crowd went wild.

Walk through Emperor’s Palace Casino – faux marble/plaster Greek & Roman replicas; glinting gold roulette tables; people of all colors, many visibly down-on-luck, growing unluckier by minute @ craps tables. Not joining them.

August 24, 2009 – Botswana

Morning/Early Afternoon

Take early flight on Botswana Airlines from Or Tambo airport in Jo’burg. Exit plane via rolling staircase on arid strip of sand & dust. Trees in distance look like deadwood w/ gnarled branches. Again, coming w/o expectations. Carry bags to customs.

Present Irish passport, just like I did @ Heathrow & Jo’burg. J’s suggestion. Says if we run into terrorists abroad (think, Mumbai), they’ll seize Americans but let Irish go. But J only has US passport. What’s he expect me to do? Just wipe my brow & say “Bye!” while stands @ gunpoint? Won’t happen in Botswana, tho. Customs is nice here. Everyone files thru w/o incident. Still, it’s clear we’re not in Heathrow anymore. Walls look like they’ve been cracked & graying for centuries, taking on tincture of dust & desert landscape.

Passing thru metal detectors, Julius asks yawning customs officer if she likes No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. Guard & I both cock heads. Where hell did that come from? J says show’s set in Botswana. Ah, makes sense now. But in Jo’burg airport, J & I looked up Botswana on Wikipedia & saw has only 1.2 million people. Capital city, Gaborone, has ~ 187,000 people; Maun has ~ 45,000. How much mileage could No. 1 Ladies get out of places that small? Wonder how long show’ll last before runs out of plotlines.

Rickety-looking, propeller-driven craft w/ only 8 seats awaits. A 1^st for me. Have no idea where we’re heading or what we’re in for. Is this another one of J’s adventure travel schemes? When we first met, he told me that, before becoming lawyer, he wanted to be war correspondent. Added, “I like travelling to parts unknown…places where I can get shot or catch plague.” Shit, he knows I don’t want in on his Deliverance fantasy! Still, he suckered me into it. To top it off, shaven-headed Dutch pilot in green fatigues tells us, “I need everybody to please wear your seatbelts. We’re experiencing a lot of bird traffic & I might have to swerve a lot to miss them.” Fuck! Miracle on Hudson wasn’t that long ago – & that kind of precision landing can only happen once! & that was New York, not the fucking Kalahari Desert! Board small charter flight, strap myself in b/h pilot & close eyes, chanting “Om Mani Padme Hum” the whole way.

Now & then, my peepers open & spy vast tracts of Africa many thousand ft below. Sometimes J looks over & smiles sheepishly @ me. Am in no mood to smile. Plane hangs in air like string-bound toy mouse, battered by antsy cat’s paw. My wincing face presides over silent Tibetan chant. Try remembering story Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg tells of friend Sylvia Boorstein on moribund plane; she started doing loving-kindness mediation…and shit! Can’t remember rest of story! Of all times to forget! Must be saying this shit out loud. Botswanan woman next to me, who’s probably been on same plane 100 x’s, looks @ me like I’m craziest white man ever.

40 Minutes Later

Land on wilderness airstrip. Open eyes. Still alive! “Thank you, angels, protector spirits, & totem animals! I know this was an ensemble effort!” Botswanan woman laughs @ me. Lean forward & thank pilot who’s been watching me in rearview mirror whole time & got good sense of my faith in his abilities. Gives stone-cold, you’re-not-welcome glare. Don’t care. Just glad to still have all my parts attached.

Smiling Botswanan man (~ 5’11”, muscular build, green safari fatigues) on dusty airstrip approaches J & me, introduces himself as Johnny. Helps w/ bags, takes us in jeep.

I reapply copious amts of 50+ SPF sunscreen over face, neck, arms; don wide-brimmed safari hat from bag & tie strings below chin – can’t take chances, am Irish. Johnny looks @ me in much same way as indigenous woman on plane, but, unlike pilot, understands I’m not from these parts.

As Johnny drives us to camp, his jeep fells bare-branched bushes. Goddamn, this jeep can mow down tree-sized bushes!

Passing mastodon elephants, chimpanzees, warthogs & water buffalo. None even care we’re there. Johnny exhorts: “Stay seated in jeep. Don’t stand up.” As long as stay in jeep & don’t stand up, animals won’t view us as predator or prey. Dusty, sandy roads have jeep tracks but wind sweeps dust/sand over tracks every few days & Johnny must make his own way. No prob, he’s from here, knows drill.

20 Minutes Later – Tubu Tree Lodge

Arrive @ Tubu Tree Camp on Okavango Delta. Staff of 5 or 6 natives sings tribal welcome song upon jeep’s arrival. I look down; am not type who digs being fussed over. 2 camp directors stand behind staff, introduce themselves – Justin & Jacky. (From here on out, there are so many J names, I’ll have to reference Julius by full name instead of just “J”.)

Camp bldgs span ~ an acre. Located in remote region w/ next camp ~ hour away by jeep/boat. Roofs = thatched. Floors = logs. Walls = decked w/ tribal masks, cotton throes, low-hanging talismans.

Common area = spacious; generous spread of sliced breads, iced tea, guava juice, Roibost tea, & plump, floury scones (mouthwatering).

Justin & Jacky take us down deck toward bar area, stocked to rafters w/ Jim Bean, Tequila, red/white/rose wine & spirits. Tell us we can help ourselves if no one’s behind bar. No hard-liquor drinker myself, but still nice to know.

Point to communal bathroom (toilets in cabins too) & tell us, “Monkeys might jump in & join you. What can we say, we share this space w/ them.” Let us know we have to stay on wooden & stone paths @ all times – general rule for camps – lest we wander off into wilds & meet our match. Also let us know hyenas might giggle, lions might roar, elephants might graze, baboons might knock on cabin door or shake coconuts from trees above roof while we sleep. No need for alarm. Nothing more natural. Any probs: blow blowhorn & either Justin or Jacky will come running.

Justin walks us to cabin. At least 3 x size of Mondior Concorde room in Jo’burg. Deep Woods bug-repellent incense burns – surprisingly pleasant & meditative. Comfy king-sized bed with 5-star white beddings & plush pillows. Deluxe furnishings belie treacherous landscape, spanning infinite terrain w/ food chain in full swing. Ceiling lights always dim, maybe to create suspenseful jungle feel. Whatever suspense might lurk in fields beyond cabin screens, bet sweet ass I’m sticking to wooden & stone paths.

20 – 25 Minutes Later

After unpacking & settling in, Julius & I wander into common area. 3 other guests – Julia (matronly woman, early 60s, from Melbourne); her husband Graham (retired law professor, now practicing Melbourne attorney); & Giles (taciturn retiree from Sydney). Meeting genteel bunch calms & emboldens me. If they can survive flock-dodging propeller jets & prowling hyenas so far from civilization, so can I! How much danger could there be @ lodge w/ 200-ply sheets?

Coming Up

Tubu Tree Afternoon & Sunset

Greenhorn of Africa (Part One)

A New York Navel-Gazer Looks at Botswana, South Africa

and Mozambique by Way of London

By Kyle Thomas Smith

Part One

Today I heard on a podcast that Boyd Varty, son of the Varty family who owns the Londolozi Game Park in South Africa, is writing a memoir. I don’t know the book’s title. All I know is that the opening line is something like, “Come sit by my fire.”

From there, he launches into harrowing tales of walking away in one piece from multiple plane crashes, saving ingénues from crocodiles’ jaws in Brazil, and fending off starving lionesses on his treks through Africa, all before pursuing a career as a boxer in Thailand. At age 20, he fell into a deep depression but came across a sangoma, a witch doctor in an African village, who made some magical incantation that spurred Boyd’s dispirited soul on to a protracted vision quest that would later become the subject of his forthcoming autobiography.

Let me say straight out that this blog post is bound to be less fascinating than the Varty boy’s life. First of all, I was only in Africa for two and a half weeks, most of which was spent in game parks where the chardonnay flowed in rivers every time our jeeps full of retirees and Ex-Officio-clad, white-collar warriors returned to camp from our two daily photographic safaris.

Second, I’m writing this dispatch in the throes of jetlag from my Brooklyn watering hole, the Tea Lounge, which reeks more of Quattro Breves and Turkish Lattes than it does of wild savannah perils.

I’ve also been popping Malarone for the past three weeks, so I can’t even recount fever dreams that I might have otherwise had during bouts of malaria. Besides, late August/early September is winter in the subequatorial regions of Africa and the mosquitoes were either dead or too flaccid to fly when I was out peering at pachyderms. This doesn’t mean it wasn’t hot. Holy shit, the sun could burn right through your binocular lenses, at least in mid-afternoon, but there too, I can’t even bring back field reports of sunburns since I shellacked my pasty Irish skin with enough 50+ SPF Sunblock to shield myself from the greenhouse effect for life.

(I’m hardly the danger-seeker Hemingway was. Rather than picking up muskets, Julius and I found ourselves paying a few hundred South African Rand—the equivalent of about 20 US dollars, each—to pet a trained cheetah cub at the southern tip of South Africa.

Papa Hem would have boasted about staring that endangered creature down and laying it low with a single shot, but I have never, will never, and could never hunt a living thing—especially one so (deceptively) adorable. I mean, I can’t even bring myself to preorder flounder from a Long John Silver’s aquarium.

Unlike my fellow spectators at the lodge, I cheered when I watched an impala near Simbambili Lodge outfox a slow-witted leopard. I hope to God my tenderhearted disposition doesn’t ruin my writing career.)

But one thing I do have in common with the Londolozi author is that I was in the general vicinity of his family’s park when I was on the airstrip en route to Nelstruit and then Cape Town. By sheer coincidence, my hot minute near Londolozi coincided with my guru Martha Beck’s Starlight Safari at the game park, but, alas, she was nowhere to be seen before our four-seat propeller jet took off. (BTW, if you’re a Martha fan too, please note that her beloved beagle Cookie recently passed away, so you might want to send your sympathies to her website.) Anyway, this morning’s podcast inspired me to throw down some notes from our trip, which Julius has been bugging me to post. So here goes, warts and all (almost unabridged):

****These are only notes—raw notes—taken straight from a travel notebook I kept. Please forgive the shorthand (e.g., @, &, tho, ~, thru), grammar lapses and paucity of possessive pronouns (e.g., “their,” “mine,” “his,” “hers”) and articles (e.g., “a,” “an,” & “the”).****

****Many photos are mine & Julius’ but at least as many are lifted from Flickr & other websites. Many images are filler for what we failed to capture as amateur/often inattentive photographers.****

August 21, 2009 – Soho & Trafalgar Square, London

Arrive @ Heathrow @ 9 am. Still sliding on last night’s Ambien. Mysteriously arrive @ Hazlitt’s—favorite hotel in all my years of slipping in & out of rented rooms. Can’t even recall passing through customs or taking taxi. Staff fixes me pot of Darjeeling tea, seats me in one of their many ground-floor libraries. I munch, red-eyed, on biscuits while gazing @ old, crumbling books on shelves. Too blitzed to get off ass & check if pages on The Voyage Out are authentically yellowing or just plain blank.

Rest ruddy cheek on palm as I wonder if V. Woolf ever stayed @ Hazlitt’s (est. 1718) but am awake enough to know it’s a stupid meditation. She was already living a couple neighborhoods over in Bloomsbury, tho it’s true she wasn’t known for her frugality & might have splurged on a Hazlitt’s room while up-cycling.

Noon

Room ready. Can’t hit sack ’til nighttime, not unless I want jetlag locked in its infernal place.

Take shower, rubbing soap in zombielike slow-mo over body. Ablutions so automatic, eyes so heavy, am not even sure if I undressed before stepping into tub. Satisfied I’ve done so by time I step out, reach for towel & notice I’m in front of full-length window as lunchtime crowd marches by, taking time out of busy schedules to snicker. Close curtains, happy to have harvested at least some admiring glances.

1:00 pm

Meet Rachael for lunch @ Café Boheme. Have long prided myself on moving beyond mainstream gay identity. Still, first thing I do is hand Rachael program to her all-time favorite musical, South Pacific, which I saw last week @ Lincoln Center. (In my defense, I only went to show b/c Julius promised to spring for pizza afterwards. Wasn’t moved by outdated depictions of race relations in Polynesia; thought blonde was being ridiculous – kind of like watching Giant in the 21^st Century, but not as good). Order bottle of something red. R has salmon omelet; me, salade nicoise.

Rachael & I email 1 to 2 x/day but still find loads to catch up on in person. R tells me BBC laughs @ American wingnuts & evangelicals. UK & liberal Americans like me not amused now, tho. Furious over ignorance & ultra-partisan opposition to Obama’s healthcare plan. Am equally outraged @ WH for seeking consensus w/ right, bargaining over public option & letting right run debate. Conservatives say: “We don’t trust government.” Why the fuck weren’t they screaming that when Bush launched unholy war? & why didn’t media cover Iraq protests anywhere near as much as town-hall riots? & did Republicans deign to give us town halls before going ahead w/ Shock & Awe? That was Big Government at its baddest. And Dems were all too quick to capitulate, as usual; hope they don’t this time. (Mention to R that am glad to also have EU passport, thanks to Irish Grampa.)

~ 5:00 pm

Move on to drinks up road @ The Dog & Duck. Still chattering but look @ watch, see it’s already 7 pm. Am full to bursting with Fosters Lager but have only 15 minutes to claim ground-floor table for 7:30 show @ Playhouse Theatre near Trafalgar Square.

The show: La Cage Aux Folles, another wrecking ball to non-cliché gay status. (Must admit: bought ticket just to hear “I Am What I Am.” Also smitten by antique, feather-boa camp.)

7:20 pm

Arrive @ Playhouse Theatre late but still time before curtain call. Didn’t realize would be occupying 1 of few tables. Rest of audience in regular seats behind me. Am right up against stage.

Sitting w/ 3 muscle boys who wink @ & flirt w/ me. Guy w/ them looks like Col. Sanders in an ascot. Must be rent boys. Play it off w/ them but am thankful they don’t later extend invitation to orgy that I’d have to spend awkward 20 mins or so turning down. (Heard all about London boys.) Couldn’t explain that one away to Julius, who is due to arrive @ ~ dawn, nor would want to besmirch unblemished record of fidelity.

8:12 pm

Sinuous can-can dancer from cast jumps on table, gropes me as stage lights flash. All above waist, tho, so = okay.

10:30 pm

Soho erupting w/ nightlife. Even more jam-packed than Manhattan due to narrower streets. Unabashedly drunk mobs. Can’t justify going to bed.

Opt for Margherita pizza half a block away @ chi-chi restaurant called Bertorelli. Fashionista waiter acts like my table’s not worth his time. Won’t even get me another Peroni. Have to wave down his buddy for a check. Leave no tip. Tips are To Insure Proper Service, & where the hell was that?

11:20 pm

Back @ Hazlitt’s. Log on to Bertorelli website. Tell them to tell their waiters to get over themselves. Say I come from city where restaurants are 2x as full & wait staff at least as gorgeous & infinitely politer; say, in NYC, servers know it’s to their financial & karmic benefit to be nice to customers. Website has extensive Comments & Suggestion protocol, tho. Have to go thru ~ 12 screens; takes 1/2 hour to rifle off complaint. Worth it, tho. Plus, am automatically registered for raffle for all-expenses-paid trip to Italy. Prob’ly be disqualified once they read my Comments & Suggestions.

August 22, 2009 – London: Soho, Belgravia, Picadilly Circus, & Islington

Morning

Can’t sleep; wake up @ 4: 25. Write, meditate, shower. Hope to see J by time I’m done but no sign of him. Roma Espresso only place open on Greek Street. Order espresso and Peligrino. Woman in layers of raggedy 80s clothes sits outside; egg yolk dripping from hair (don’t know how that happened); manila file folder on lap,

mumbling to herself in cockney flourishes like strumpet from Jack The Ripper movie; making random scribbles on corners of papers in file. Besides Roma Espresso owner, she & I = only ones out this early. No call from J. By 10:30, checking world news & American Airlines websites for plane crashes.

Afternoon

J turns up @ Hazlitt’s @ ~ noon. Both his bags weigh ~ 500 lbs. Concierge helps carry. Hope she’s eligible for worker’s comp. J says had to sit on JFK runway in rain for 4 hrs. Surprised plane could take off w/ his bags in back.

Go to Pimlico, Belgravia to look @ houses. Both locales sterile & dead cf. Soho. Has Buddhist Center, tho, w/ Theravada & Mahayana teachers. Closed for next month, tho. How will people keep in practice? Also, band of Cambridge-looking elite on white-pillared balcony drinking champagne & listening to Gnarls Barkley’s St. Elsewhere. What street cred! (I know, I’m a fine one to talk!)

Julius realizes he didn’t bring Malarone. No Malarone, no Africa. Need Rx. Call everyone we know in London. All say go to Public Health Dept. We go, waiting room’s full. Boots Pharmacy @ Picadilly Circus (equiv., Duane Reade, NYC) doesn’t offer help on where to find self-pay physician on Saturday. Tough bollocks, they all but say.

Before having nervous breakdown, we decide to buy socks at Harvie & Hudson. Salesman overhears us discussing dilemma.

Suggests we go to London Clinic, a self-pay physicians office near Mayfair. We hail cab, walk out w/ Malarone Rx 20 mins later. Boots of Picadilly has to fill it – more egg on their faces now than in schizophrenic woman’s hair.

Dinner

Meet friends Matthew & Neil for dinner @ gastro-pub called The Draper’s Arms in Islington. Rachael joining us. Matthew & Neil want to meet her, vastly intrigued by specter of oft-referenced penpal. Thank God, instant rapport b/t all parties once R arrives. (R & husband Adam had trouble finding babysitter for Mimi, so Adam had to stay home.) Turns out, Neil = good friends w/ R’s society journalist sister Emily. Conversation steers itself now. J & I both enchanted by Islington houses. Might move into one if/when we relocate. Lucky to have ready group of friends if/when we do.

(Continues w/ Part Two)

Coming Up

Tubu Tree Camp, Botswana

This Is How Bad It’s Gotten in America

This makes me SICK!!!!

Michelangelo Signorile interviews Pastor Steven L. Anderson on his show after Anderson said from the pulpit, “I hate Barack Obama” & “God wants me to hate Barack Obama.”  The Pastor would not consider an assassination murder but rather a service to God & country.  (Some members of his congregation are now literally taking up arms against Obama.)

Anderson goes on to say that gays should be executed & that church-going gays only go to church so they can have access to children.  He ends the call by telling Signorile, a gay author & radio host, that he hopes he gets brain cancer & dies like Ted Kennedy.

For 8 years, we had a sociopath/war criminal in office & right-wing & mainstream media both promoted the fallacy that to denounce him was unpatriotic.

Oh, how times have changed! Now right wing feels that repudiating the new president (“You Lie!,” Rep. Joe Wilson) is one of the pillars of patriotism & mainstream media gives far more coverage to their constant calumny than it did to our protests of Bush’s criminal war & criminal presidency.

Is Pastor Anderson an extreme case?  As far as I can tell, only by a notch or two.  No matter what Obama does to appease the right (and he appeases them FAR too often, especially at the expense of the gay community), they will always find fault.  He can’t even give a back-to-school speech w/o being accused by millions of indoctrinating children into his “socialist” agenda.  Funny how Republicans once made a lifestyle of laughing off any minority group’s claim to “victimhood.”  But the minute they – especially Rush Limbaugh, once the biggest chortler of them all – can make themselves out to be victims, they don’t hesitate.  Many would even join Anderson in saying that an Obama assassination would be the furthest thing from murder.

To hear Anderson’s exact words of Obama hate from pulpit, see Don Lemon’s CNN report below:

Finger-Twirling: The World’s Oldest Profession?

By Kyle Thomas Smith

I wrote this a long time ago, but I’m on a memoir jag, so here it comes again…

“This is for discrimination and egotists who think supreme/

And this is for whoever taught you how to kiss in designer jeans.”

-Prince, “Lady Cab Driver”

For a long time, Mom blamed herself for my inaptitude in school. She was already exhausted enough, raising a houseful of six kids when I happened along, quite by surprise. So, when I was supposed to be learning Reading, ’Riting, ’Rithmetic with The Count, Big Bird, and a chaser of The Electric Company, she didn’t protest too much when my siblings would come along and change the channel to General Hospital, What’s Happening!!, Soap, or those reprehensible ABC After-School Specials. But, the way I see it, this was no tragedy. In time, I became a devoted reader and writer (I still suck at math). Plus, overexposure to junk culture gave me a whole different jumping-off point from my more assimilated peers.

For instance, I developed an early fascination with Urban Fiction from Blaxploitation films, which were constantly airing (replete with bleeps and scene edits) in the late Seventies, especially on the U-Channels and Insomniac Theater. I sat through more of them than I can count—Blacula, Cleopatra Jones, Superfly, Shaft, Foxy Brown. (My disclaimer: those were different times, I was too young to have a conscience about it, and mom was in the other room.) They were riddled with guns, pushers, pimps and crooked cops. But the hookers were the ones who fascinated me most.

I didn’t know what they were doing. I knew they enticed men, but I didn’t know for what purpose. To me, they were just strange women, standing on street corners in tight minis, often while leaning against brick buildings under elevated subway tracks, twirling the dangling ends of their chain-link belts. I knew they twirled chains. I had no idea what they were up to past that.

One Saturday morning, Mom and my sister Kathy were in the kitchen. As usual, the TV was blaring. Channel 7 Eye-Witness News was on. Kathy was wearing her perennial yellow terrycloth robe and burning a Cheddar omelet on a front burner of the stove. Mom was wearing a black apron with white polka-dots and pouring Cascade into our new dishwasher. I was sitting at the table, drinking an iceless Lipton Iced Tea that I’d mixed myself from a bottle, which had a warning label on it, which read that the beverage I was enjoying was laced with something called saccharine, which was responsible for the deaths of laboratory animals. The anchorman announced that the National Hookers Convention in Las Vegas was in full-swing. Mom noted her disdain with a scowl. My sister responded with a smirk and the gambit, “It’s the world’s oldest profession, Mom.”

“Next to motherhood,” Mom countered.

The camera flashed to a dais of women who looked like the ones from those movies. My eyes dilated, “What’s a profession?”

Kathy whipped around and winked, “It’s how you make your money.”

Mom caught sight of my awe and said, “Kathleen, turn that crap off now!” Kathy complied, knowing she’d won the match. Her youngest brother had learned what the world’s oldest profession was.

I remember going away from the table that day, meditating on olden times. You see, in addition to Superfly, I was also fond of 1950’s Bible epics like Ben Hur, The Egyptian and The Ten Commandments. Those films were strewn with pharaohs, shepherds, Romans and Hebrews. (I guess there were harlots in them too, but these were G-rated movies, so a five-year-old couldn’t tell.) I began to put two and two together. So, there were hookers in the times of the pharaohs and the shepherds, huh? A picture began to form in my mind. For years after that, I walked around imagining bearded men in caftans, carrying staffs through the scorching desert and passing by women, who were in pumps and purple, Saran-Wrap mini-skirts, twirling chains from their hips.

One thing I did have in common with the other kids was that I loved Superheroes. I watched every cartoon and live-action show on the air. I wore the pages out on my Marvel Comic Books. I wore whatever Underoos Mom would buy me for my birthday. The Hall of Justice and the Legion of Doom had timeshares on my heart. Linda Carter was a goddess as Wonder Woman: her invisible jet (but you could still see her in it, so what was the point?), her golden lasso, her bulletproof bracelets, and don’t forget that twirl (if you pulled her out of the pyrotechnics in mid-twirl, would she be naked?). The Wonder Twins were a vision of metamorphosis and possibilities in life. I would have traded all my siblings in lock, stock and barrel to have Christopher Reeves as my older brother. Now, I didn’t feel that way about every superhero, mind you. While I would certainly watch Batman, Adam West had love handles, so I considered him inadequate, and Robin was just a twerp no matter which way you sliced him. But Captain Marvel! Now that was a Man.

Some rippling guy named John Davey played him on the series Shazam!, which ran for three seasons before going into reruns. The show was about a teenage boy and his Mentor, who traveled in a Winnebago to wherever there was trouble. Whenever they saw things getting out of hand, the teenager just had to shout, “Shazam!,” and The World’s Mightiest Mortal, Captain Marvel, would dive from the sky to save the day (if you looked hard enough, you could see strings attached). Then all the characters would stand dumbfounded at how well everything worked out. As if that weren’t enough, at show’s end, Captain Marvel would make an encore to deliver a Public Service Announcement, which always gave you one to grow on.

I never missed a Shazam! rerun. John Davey was too good to pass up. (By the way, I just Googled him and couldn’t find anything he did after Shazam.) He had a torso like an iceberg, which that nylon suit did nothing to hide. Man, they knew what they were doing in Wardrobe. All across America, teenyboppers were dropping issues of Tiger Beat left and right to tune in. I was probably the only boy on the block, though, who was planning my wedding to John Davey.

Not that I could tell my brothers this. One Saturday morning, I wanted to be alone with Captain Marvel. Our basement’s red and black argyle-patterned carpet was burning my bare legs as I geared up for the weekly Shazam! episode under our red plastic-plated ceiling lamps. I dressed up for the occasion in tan short shorts and a black t-shirt that featured a Crocodile holding a tennis racket. The theme song started up. And, wouldn’t you know, my brothers Kerry and Kevin just had to come down to join me.

I paid them no mind and trained my attention on John Davey instead. It must have been a splendid episode. I remember jumping to my feet and giving it a rousing ovation. A Tide commercial came on. Kevin was curling the twenty pound dumbbells that Dad had bought at Sportmart and Kerry was counting his chin-ups on the chin-up bar that he’d fastened in the doorway to our workroom.

Shazam! came back on. It was time for Captain Marvel to give his PSA. I stood at attention. Captain Marvel flew down from the sky, landing squarely on his feet. “Hi,” he said. In an instant, I summoned all that I had learned from the women in Shaft, Foxy Brown, and countless other bad-influence movies. I shifted my weight to my left leg, put my hand on my left hip, cocked my head to the right and, simulating the way those women in those movies twirled their chains, started twirling my right index finger. Then, instead of saying hi back to Captain Marvel, I did him one better and said “Hoy-oy-oy-oy.”

The room fell silent. Kevin put down the dumbbell. Kerry let go of the chin-up bar. They looked at each other. They looked at me. Within three seconds, our house shook with laughter.

Twirling one’s index finger and saying, “Hoy-oy-oy-oy,” became standard greeting among the kids in our house. I never told them that I had adapted it from the night moves of ladies of the evening and that, when I first used it, I was trying to seduce Captain Marvel.

EPILOGUE
By the mid-Eighties, my sister Colleen had an executive position in the public relations department of a bank on LaSalle Street. Like other members of my family, she had grown so accustomed to twirling her finger and saying “Hoy-oy-oy-oy” that she had even begun using the salutation among her colleagues in corporate America. Soon they were twirling their fingers and saying “Hoy-oy-oy-oy” to each other too.

In 1989, I pulled some strings and, though I was underage, landed a part-time job as a messenger for Record Copy Services, which was also on LaSalle Street next door to where Colleen worked. One afternoon, I walked into her office building’s lobby with a package for a law firm. As I stood at the elevator bank, I observed one woman in a navy blue business suit stepping off an elevator. She seemed to recognize another woman walking toward her in a similar business suit.

“Jane,” the woman called out to her. “Mary,” the other woman responded. Then they both twirled their fingers and said, “Hoy-oy-oy-oy.” I looked down at the lobby’s marble floor and quickly boarded the elevator. I didn’t have the nerve to tell the two businesswomen that they were acting like hookers.

Fountain of the Peeing Boy in Footie Pajamas: An Introduction to Logic

Logic has never been my forte, so it shocked me and everyone I knew when I got an A in my Intro to Logic course in college. There’s a valid explanation for this, though. Homework in this particular class was optional, so if we didn’t do the assignment, there were no consequences; if we got an A on the homework, the professor would give us extra credit; and if we got all the problems wrong, we knew it wouldn’t impact our grade. Plus, the professor would always encourage us to go over our errors with her or her TAs at office hours. “Learning happens by trial and error” was her motto.

Our grades were based solely on midterm and final exam scores. Having nothing better to do first thing in the morning, I would actually go to class and even do the assigned homework. I never answered a single homework problem correctly, but after getting a big fat F each time, I’d go to office hours and the professor or one of her TAs would patiently walk me through each problem until I got it right. By the time midterms and finals rolled around, I could do all the deductive syllogisms necessary to pull an A.

What I’m trying to illustrate is that logic has never been second nature to me. Yet, to my amazement, I’ve managed to get through 35 years of life and counting, even though I grew up with a mind undiluted by rational thinking.

To offer another example of my imperfect left brain and hyper-developed right brain: at the same time I was taking Introduction to Logic, I was working as a clerk for a claims management office. For my first couple years there, I was unacquainted with the office computers. Mostly all I did was file medical malpractice and workers comp records all day, every day, which was fine by me since it gave my mind a chance to go off on its perennial pleasure cruises while my body followed a simple, Zen regimen of stuffing carbon copies of personal injury forms into manila folders. But every so often, as I went about my office chores, gonglike booms would sound from either side of the filing cabinets. After hearing these several times, I surmised that I was having paranormal experiences, that the Universe was communicating with me—and only me—through spooky, magical crescendos. For months on the job, I attempted to decode these communications. Was I being chosen for some epic destiny? Why else would I be hearing these dramatic surges? I later discovered that what I was hearing was the sound of my supervisors turning on their Mac PCs.

These examples are part of a longstanding pattern of absentmindedness and harebrained conclusions that started way back in my childhood. They even preceded the night that our dentist’s son, Johnny Markewicz, came to spend the night at our house in the spring of 1979. I was five years old and my brother Kent was nine. Johnny was a year ahead of Kent in school and Kent wanted to get in good with an upperclassmen, so he begged our Mom to ban his embarrassing little brother (that would be me) from joining in the good times he and Johnny were planning on having together, playing with G.I. Joe action figures and Matchbox cars. Never one to suffer silently, I howled and screamed worse than any werewolf or werewolf’s victim until our Mom handed down the verdict that it was only fair that I should be able to be wherever I wanted in the house.

Kent gnashed his teeth and called me, “Brat!,” as usual. It was an insult, sure, but it wasn’t a swear word so he could get away with it. Still, it hurt every time he said it, especially since I didn’t want Kent feeling annoyed by me. His steady stream of jokes were so uproarious, I felt I just had to follow him everywhere he’d go, including to the bathroom—the one place where he could yell for Mom to finally shake me off his trail. Who could blame me, though? Kent was the one who taught me such humdingers as:

“So, the doctor said, ‘Here’s my thermometer, now where did I put my pen?’”

And:

“Doctor, Doctor! I think I’m a goat!”

“How long have you felt like this?”

“Since I was a kid!”

After punching out these staples of his comedic repertoire, I would double over, blinded by tears of laughter, only to straighten up and find that Kent had made a break for it. I’d sometimes have to spend hours sleuthing out where he went but most of the time I managed to find and pester him until he told me more jokes.

At first, every time these early shoots of Kent’s comic genius broke through, I’d end up wetting my pants. To put an end to this putrid habit, my parents imposed a new house rule stating that, whenever Kent made me laugh to the point of urination, I’d have to go straight to the bathroom and wash my hands after flushing. On paper, this all looks reasonable enough, but my trips to the bathroom ended up quadrupling as a result of their new ordinance. Not only that, but my time away from Kent meant that I was missing out on a good three-fourths of his inspired knee-slappers. I also failed to understand why one had to pee in the bathroom, of all places. Why not pee on the sidewalk, the grass, or against a brick wall? It only seemed logical that, wherever one spent a penny, a whirlpool would appear to flush the urine away with a whoosh.

So, with official permission to participate in the fun and frolics of Kent and Johnny’s sleepover, I suited up into my sunny yellow footie pajamas, which had white padded feet and white rings at the cuffs. Kent wore his orange and blue Chicago Bears PJs while Johnny’s pajamas had a white background where assorted Superheroes—Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Aquaman—showed off their various feats of power and dexterity. Johnny’s jammies alone showed how much cooler he was than us. I wanted to be around him even more than Kent. This whole affair was nothing short of thrilling for me, even though they both cold-shouldered me the whole time, hoarding their Hotwheels cars and barricading the two-tiered Mattel highway system with their bigger bodies. The best I could do was assume the sidelines. Still, I was so excited to be with the big boys, I hardly noticed their ostracism.

As we all hunkered down with toys on our bedroom’s shaggy red carpet, Johnny caught sight of the Tigger knockoff that I got for Christmas the year before. This particular orange plush-toy tiger was squat, whiskery and stationary where the real Tigger is lithe, bouncy and has only a few strands of whiskers shooting from both ends of his upper lip. Still, it was clearly a tiger, which is why the observation that Johnny made next struck me as not only bizarre but stupid. He turned to Kent and said, “I like your lion.” A lion? I sneered as I turned to Kent, awaiting his response. Kent picked up the knockoff Tigger, shook it around in front of his face and said in a gruff cartoony voice, “Tiger. I ain’t lyin’!”

Johnny merely giggled but I stood up, held my belly and gasped with laughter, gobbling gulps of oxygen like a fish. I laughed and laughed and laughed until I could feel my bladder growing heavy as an Acme Anvil. Then I laughed harder, harder than I’d ever laughed before. Flouting what I saw as a nonsensical convention, I refused to go to the toilet to relieve myself. Instead, in a fit of hilarity, I climbed on top of my mattress and stood above Kent and Johnny’s heads, catching my breath before unzipping my footie pajamas, lowering my Underoos crotch and chuckling myself pink as I hosed down our shaggy red carpet with a pipeline full of pee.

Kent and Johnny Markewicz could not help but pay attention to me now. But why weren’t they laughing? They both looked at me like I was a bank robber, who’d shot the teller pointblank before turning the gun on them. To my equal dismay, though, as the last few urine drops fell, I noticed that no vortex of water had arisen, as planned, to drain the offending liquid from the carpet threads.

Hot tears streamed down Johnny Markewicz’s face as he screamed that he wanted to go home. He refused to sleep on any of our beds and he wouldn’t even accept an offer to sleep in a sleeping bag on our basement floor. After all, our basement was carpeted and God knows what I might have done on it during a funny moment on, say, The Banana Splits. After Mr. Markewicz picked Johnny up to bring him home, Kent glowered at Mom for allowing me to come along and ruin his every shot at primary-grade popularity. As Mom knelt beside a bucket of soap and water on my bedroom’s shaggy red carpet, scrubbing away and remonstrating me for this senseless act, I stood in my now zipped-up footie pajamas, scratching my chin and wondering why the hell the whirlpool never showed up on my bedroom carpet the way it always did in our toilets.

Slowing Down Time with a French Movie

Julius woke up at 3:15 this Monday morning. This is how it’s going to be from now on. His new job at BP is in Houston. He comes back weekends and I stay here in New York, managing the estate, slogging through freelance articles and new story ideas, and eking an agent and a publisher for 85A. Before he even got to LaGuardia, he sent me three texts on my cell phone. Maybe I’ll hear from him another time after he lands and then we’ll have our nightly Skype session. These are all great approximations of being together in person, but approximations are only approximations.

Last week, we went down to Houston. The sidewalks look positively post-armageddon. Nobody but nobody walks down them. The city’s too freakin’ hot to step outside for any longer than it takes to rush to your car, which is probably why the architecture – besides the scattering of Chicago-esque skyscrapers downtown – doesn’t go far beyond strip-mall chic. Not even the tannest construction-working hunk can put in the amount of time and energy necessary to cobble together a metropolitan marvel in that sun. On the upside, since Houstonians don’t like wandering outside too much, the high-rises are stocked to the roof with amenities – workout rooms, cyber cafes, conference rooms, and rec rooms. Such buildings are also quite cosmopolitan, what with so many multinational corporations down there importing so much overseas talent. We got Julius an apartment in one such place, as well as a Lexus minivan for his twenty minute commute to work via the gargantuan freeway, where America’s dependence on oil is on full display.

But yesterday we went to see Oliver Assayas’ L’Heure D’Ete at Lincoln Plaza Cinema, here in New York. The film centers on how three siblings divvy up the estate of their widowed mother, an estimable painter and antique collector, after she passes away. The Musee D’Orsay takes an interest in her collection and, since none of the siblings is available to take occupancy of the estate, they sell the mother’s house and most of her assets. At one point, one of the siblings and his spouse follow an English-language tour through the Musee D’Orsay, which stops for a cursory glance at the mother’s antiques before moving briskly on to other points of interest. The son sees his mother’s vases – which for him are brimming with sentimental value – perched in an antiseptic glass case, stripped of the comforts of home.

I’ll admit that, though the cinematography was splendiferous, I found the movie to be pretty slow-going. When the credits rolled, Julius asked me what I thought about L’Heure D’Ete and, after taking a moment to ponder, I could only say, “Very French.” I didn’t know how else to put it. For better or for worse, French cinema builds its narratives far more subtly and patiently than American cinema – to the point where I wonder, after seeing certain French films, if anything even happened in the two hours I spent wearing out my buttocks in the chair.

But Julius set me straight. He pointed out how L’Heure D’Ete’s nuances were consonant with those of our own life in Brooklyn. He said, “After we both die, nobody will ever know how much life took place in our house. They’ll never know what we both thought and what we both felt and the value that we ascribed to our keepsakes, which are worth far more than any price tag could ever say.” Tears were starting to pool in his eyes like they do at the opera or like they did the first time I showed him Susan Boyle on Youtube.

I was considerably more stoic, “Well, that’s true. Nobody can live within our own subjective experience.”

“Yes,” he said, “But that’s what’s so sad. A century from now, nobody will ever care that Marquez used to sleep on top of the couch with his back paw dangling off the side. But to me…it means a lot…”

Dammit, he had to play the cat card! He got my eyes watering too. And leave it to the French to drive home the point of existential loneliness on a day when the music’s pumping and the horns are blaring from the Puerto Rican Day Parade on Fifth Avenue.

We walked over to Fiorelli’s for pizza afterwards and ordered a bottle of wine. It was about seven at night and I was still a little hungover from the triple bon-voyage dinner party that we hosted on Saturday night. Our friend Rolando is moving back to Paraguay, our friend Ian is moving to Pittsburgh, and Julius had already started his job in Houston. Yesterday morning, we heard that Kim Jong-il is threatening a nuclear attack on the United States, which some say that we can easily thwart while others are far more wary. Then there’s the unactionable meme in the blogosphere that the Mayans predicted that the world will end on December 21, 2012. (Scholars of the Mayan Civilization overwhelmingly refute this claim but many bloggers love the sense of importance that fear-mongering gives them.) None of that mattered much to me as we sat at Fiorelli’s, watching New York carry on in all its dynamism. If the apocalypse ever were to hit (and how many times has it failed to hit despite how many Jeremiahs throughout history have hailed its advent?), there’s nothing I can do about it. I can just remember how lovely life was while it was here, how adorable Marquez’s paw was draped over the couch as he took his twentieth nap of the day.

Julius called again while I was in the middle of writing this blog post. He says he misses me. We’ve barely been apart five hours and already we miss each other.

I have enough work to do to offset an overwhelm of loneliness. As for social life, I still see Mike Levine once or twice a week; Rachael still emails with more word from London almost every day; Johnjon is right down the street. I found a new Buddhist community right here in Brooklyn, where I feel a true sense of sangha and belonging and which also functions as somewhat of a support group for those experiencing impermanence. And, hey, at least I know the value of my own subjective experience.  Like the courtesan Garance said in Les Enfants Du Paradis (“Children of Paradise”): “I like my little life.”

85A: The Cover

85A Front Cover (Joe Flood, Illustrator)

Yes, I’ve been away from the blog for a long time. I was busy finishing the pre-publisher/agent draft of 85A. Now I’m preparing the proposal.

The highly instructive book Your Novel Proposal: From Creation to Contract by Blythe Cameson and Marshall J. Cook suggests that we take a kitchen-sink approach to proposal submissions,  incorporating everything from marketing ideas to possible cover designs.

Now seemed as good a time as any to tap my eminently talented illustrator friend Joe Flood to do the cover design. I am out of superlatives to describe the expertise with which he executed the illustration above.

The cover depicts a dream that my 15-year-old protagonist, Seamus, has after waking up in the hospital after a suicide attempt and hearing from the doctor that it was a miracle that he survived (naturally, if you steal any of the following text, I’ll sic my lawyers on you):

“Dr. Lang left the room. I closed my eyes. There was an IV in my arm but I was so beat, I hardly noticed. I dropped right off to sleep and dreamed I was back in the station wagon in our garage. Only this time, the garage was open. A wind whipped in and washed out all the exhaust. I got out of the car, walked out of the garage past Frank Seaberg, who was standing with one foot inside and one foot outside the garage, and down our driveway to the sidewalk. I walked down Ponchitrain Street to the corner of Lehigh. It was dark as the night before, the night I planned to make my last, and the streetlights were glowing. I looked far off into the distance across the railroad tracks and saw the Chicago skyline like I always do on a clear day. I watched it for a little while. But, all of a sudden, all the lights went off on all the skyscrapers and new lights started rising up. I saw London Bridges and Big Ben. London was in sight beyond the railroad tracks, where the Sears Tower, John Hancock and all the other downtown buildings used to be. I could feel my heart opening wider and wider. The Chicago skyline lights came back on soon after, but the London lights stayed on too. And between Chicago and London, more bridges and skyscrapers started coming up on the horizon, ones that I didn’t recognize at first. I recognized the Empire State Building from old movies, though, so something in me knew I was looking at New York. Looking out from the bus stop, I saw Chicago, New York and London standing together, not as three different places, but as one continuous city. I turned my head north toward Touhy Avenue and saw the 85A coming my way, opening its doors before it could even make a full stop. I looked at the driver. It was Oscar Wilde in his curls, a frock coat and a lavender silk scarf. I saw there was only one passenger on the bus. It was none other than Johnny Rotten, sitting toward the front with his legs draped over the seat next to him. He was wearing a black overcoat, square shades and a sneer. He was drinking a can of Guiness and wiping dribble off his chin. I remember thinking, I didn’t get to do Earnest, but I didn’t miss the bus either. There’s still life on the horizon.”

Check out Joe Flood’s work on his website, www.kneedeeppress.com.

Must-Watch: Keith Olbermann on Proposition 8

Shell sent this to me. It’s Keith Olbermann addressing the passage of Proposition 8 in California. His segment is utterly heartrending – and he’s not even gay!

Anyone who voted Yes on 8 should be ashamed of themselves. Truly a low water mark in a time that presages so much hope.

In case you have trouble playing the video, here is the Full Text:

FULL TEXT of Keith Olbermann on MSNBC – Monday, November 10, 2008

As promised, a Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast.

Some parameters, as preface. This isn’t about yelling, and this isn’t about politics, and this isn’t really just about Prop-8. And I don’t have a personal investment in this: I’m not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.

And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn’t about yelling, and this isn’t about politics.

This is about the… human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.

If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not… understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don’t want to deny you yours. They don’t want to take anything away from you. They want what you want — a chance to be a little less alone in the world.

Only now you are saying to them — no. You can’t have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don’t cause too much trouble. You’ll even give them all the same legal rights — even as you’re taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can’t marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn’t marry?

I keep hearing this term “re-defining” marriage.

If this country hadn’t re-defined marriage, black people still couldn’t marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal… in 1967. 1967.

The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn’t have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it’s worse than that. If this country had not “re-defined” marriage, some black people still couldn’t marry…black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not “Until Death, Do You Part,” but “Until Death or Distance, Do You Part.” Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.

You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are… gay.

And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing — centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children… All because we said a man couldn’t marry another man, or a woman couldn’t marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage. How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the “sanctity” of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?

What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don’t you, as human beings, have to embrace… that love? The world is barren enough.

It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.

And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?

With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate… this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness — this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness — share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

—

You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of…love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate. You don’t have to help it, you don’t have it applaud it, you don’t have to fight for it. Just don’t put it out. Just don’t extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don’t know and you don’t understand and maybe you don’t even want to know…It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow **person…

Just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.

This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.

But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:

“I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam,” he told the judge.

“It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all:

“So I be written in the Book of Love;

“I do not care about that Book above.

“Erase my name, or write it as you will,

“So I be written in the Book of Love.”

—

Good night, and good luck.