Solitude in Nepal

Tokyo is a city of moths. Human moths that frantically fly about a
magnificent nexus of neon light. It is electric adventure; the kind
that’s created when stir crazy geniuses are locked up in a giant concrete
room. It is the foreshadowing to the end of man’s quest to supercede god.
The garden of delights has almost been reclaimed.

The energy that permeates the air, along with it’s infinite chaotic
permutations, is a symbiotic host. As you lap up the sweet cream of
Tokyo’s sugar coated night life it devours your individuality, replacing it with a stress induced neurotic nervousness.

I, of course, figured this out too late. You can never truly see a problem
until you are separated from it. I had to be separated almost 2000 miles
from my delusional high-life before I understood that I had forgotten who I
was.

When my tourist visa had expired and my money had all been spent, I was spent. My alter-ego had only two masks left in it’s once sizable repetuar, James Bond and Ted Turner, and for a serious actor upon the stage of existence this is a truly depressing state indeed. I collected my worldly belongings, a rutsack, a few mangy clothes and a small collection of
books, and bought a ticket for the one place in the world where I knew
technology did not exist. Twelve hours after taking off from Narita airport I found myself in Nepal.

My first days in Katmandu were like a dream. Literally a dream I suppose
because I slept for almost two days in a flea ridden bed before I was able cope with the change in the cultural pace. Tokyo is a Mecca of speed; observably so by the frantic pace of the daytime city speed walkers and then further excentuated by the bopping party goers beefed up on coke. Nepal on the other hand is slow, leisurely, because, I suppose, it’s a land ruled by the mountains. Anything lying at the feet of those snowy haired Goliath’s feels intrinsically small and inconsequential. That remarkably enough makes you happy because you know that there will always be something grander then you. For the Nepalese, and those lucky enough to share their space, the mountains become a visual representation of god’s beauty and omnipotence.

After my internal clock had adjusted to the cultural jet lag I gained the
mask of a tourist and walked the streets with a wide eyed wonder akin to a
child’s first trip to the circus. Everything was a curiosity, a visual stick of liquorice that my eye’s sucked upon with a candy-cortex addict’s glee.
Adventure was mine again but for some reason I felt that this was still not
what I was looking for.

I knew I needed solitude and Katmandu, although bright and beautiful, could not give it to me. This is when my Crowded Planet, poorly named Lonely Planet, guidebook offered up tbe best advice it has ever given me. I searched the pages for the one town in the book that the writers had the least to say. A short one paragraph explanation told me about a small village named Gorapani in the south-western foothills of the Anapurna mountain range. Insight, that influential nudge by the seraphins of inspiration, explained that this was the spot I had been searching for. Insight, incidently, did not lead me wrong.

I spent 8 hours on a Nepalese bus, a bus that sang it’s creaking death song
as we zoomed down narrow mountain passes. I arrived in the dark. It was
10:30 and power officials turned out the lights at nine. It was just me and
my rut-sack and the Nepalese night covering me like a blanket. I remember
sitting, staring at this bridge which led to the first houses in the
village. It was this rickety rope bridge strait out of some 1950`s jungle
sufari movie. No head hunters unfortunately; only the wise green elders contemplating the deep chasm below. I sat staring at the trees, the moonlight, the swaying wood and rope bridge. I sat and time sat right down there with me enjoying in tandem the value of the moment. The wind, my  friend and protector, rocked the bridge gently making the four ropes chant in modulating voices. The rushing water, distant in the deep canyon below, added its own voice to the night music performing for only time and I. Water, ropes, and the thousands of winged violins thrumming out the melody
to the glorious Nepalese night. Time sat still and so I followed suit. Sipping up the seconds and savoring every last swallow. I am king, I thought, a god in my own perceptual reality. The wind giggled at this and grounded me with a fine burst of loving chastisement. Yes you are god, it said, but mortal and young. An infant actually because I was, I am. What am I to the great green
elders, to the rushing wailing river or my friend time sitting lotus beside me? A child, an infant, a creature of wide eyed wonder. It is because of this
however that they love me. Adore me as all great elders do. I am their
hope. Their energy put to fruition. However nasty or ignorant I may be they
love me all the more knowing that I am a child and will mature in time. Yes
I am God, but young. So young.

The bridge swayed, time sat, and I puffed out thick Dragon fumes that only
a cigarette from a third world country can produce. Thick necks were
forgotten. Pretty parasites were put on the sexual backburner. People became
beautiful to me again, probably because there were none around. I am a
happy hermit, I thought, but corrected my self before the wind had a chance to. I need people. They are my nourishment. They are my mirror. They are the catalysts that ignite passion and love. They may be the spiders and I the fly but it is the fear of them that keeps my prism eyes open as I fly about this wonderful world. Fear of loneliness keeps me moving. Fear of death keeps me awake.

I spent another month in Nepal, enjoying the solitude that only the
Himalayas could offer me. My time spent there, specifically that night I
lounged upon the rope bridge under the thousands of watching eyes, gave me
back my reason, my objectivity. I was my own person again and was ready to
face the world as a true individual.

A snake am I

I was born in the year of the snake. My name translated into japanese means "House of the crazy snake". Coincinots surround me. The Chinese believe the snake to be powerful creature, a minion of immortality. The western world consider snakes as evil seducers. There’s this story about an ancient garden of green growing splendor where a snake once tricked the local residents in to getting evicted. The story goes that the snake, in his own serpentine fashion, preached about the fallacy of order and the manifest destiny of anarchy. The two simple simian inhabitants were so astounded by the snake’s use of logic that the very next day they breached their lease by trashing one of the landlord’s treasured trees. Like bohemian Bolshevicks they ran about screaming things like “Fascist!” and, “Down with the man”! Their landlord was God however and he was unsympathetic to the plight of the common man. He evicted them. Later, when I asked Lucifer about the snake, the Devil replied, “The Snake? Oh, no, he wasn’t one of mine. I have to admit I like the initiative. Ballsy, you know. Really ballsy”.

A greyhound romance

Before I knew America wasn’t for me I would transverse across it on the poor man’s limo. On one of these journeys heading west out towards the plains of Montana I met a girl. In the dark neitherworld which is the back of the bus, beyond the transvestites and the worlds straightest homosexual, she lay. She lay like some ’30’s diva sipping at a coke with pouty aristocratic non-chalance.. She was the Queen of white gangbangers, or wiggers’ as my friends in school had like to call them. She had perfect porcelain white skin and a wave of black mall rat hair flying about like an unkempt brush fire. Something about her intrigued me and so, uncharacteristically ballsy, I joined her in the back of the bus and struck up a conversation. She had two kids in Florida, she told me. She had left them with their father who enjoyed hitting her from time to time. That’s why she had left. She would come back for them, she said, “as soon as I can take care of them”. Meanwhile the least favorite daughter by her account probably lay sleeping in the closet for some petty offense. She was going to Washington to meet her other boyfriend, the twin brother to her children’s father in Florida. “I’m gonna have both of ‘em,” she giggled. I told her why not as long as the kids were looked after. Conversation died having very little common interests to fuel the fire and so I just lay there with her. Hormones, intrigue, and my craving for adventure had taken the best of me. ‘Hell who knows’, I thought, ‘maybe the perfect kiss lays in all of that Mall rat splendor’. It didn’t, but who knows. As the bus sped through the night I held her and petted her and dreamed of her in the most ideal of situations. My tenderness seemed to set her back. Later she would even admit to me that she thought I was gay. I held her and kissed her smoky hair and played games reminesant of high school. She just lay there, purring and smiling. She would stare at my grin like an addict transfixed on junk and then ask repeatedly why it was there. As dawn crept in from the tinted windows I finally graced her with an answer. “This is just so strange. Strange for me is fun”, she just laughed, probably thinking I was a bit strange as well. I suppose I am.

dude, pass the television

Television is electronic morphine. Little flickers of light that lash themselves around our attention spans like a spirochete devouring blood cells. What is a drug I ask you? It is a conduit to another world. It allows the user to experience a reality outside of his own. Done in excess a drug can be harmful and in some cases even lethal. Television is no different. Television takes it’s addict into the world of idealized life. Sitcoms are places where normal people can converse with the aptitude of poets and playwrights. Crime dramas give meaning to otherwise meaningless aggression. A test. Sit a group of friends in a room where the television set is turned on. Where does the group’s attention span turn to? The drug of course. Conversation inevitably withers and is replaced by a zombie like adulation for this electronic god. Like all drugs television comes with it’s own price. For those who overindulge their life is swallowed up by this idealization and when it comes time to live their own life it just seems depressing and dull. For the addict, compared to TV real life is just a let down.

An American stomping in Tokyo

I’ve only been jumped once in my life. When I lived in Tokyo, working as a bartender at an American expat bar, I dealt with westerners trying to ward off homesickness with familiar surroundings. I told riddles, listened to stories of long lost love, and poured mixed drinks with more mix then drink; pretty much everything you might expect from a diligent bartender. However when 4am hit and my time card was punched I would escape that bar as fast as possible. To this day for me work is work and pleasure pleasure. Ropongi, the gaijin capital of Japan. Tourists from all over the world collect upon it’s streets to either make a dime or spend it. Ropongi reeks of hedonism. Cocaine in the bathrooms. Magic mushrooms sold on the streets (They’re legal, go figure). 4am and all is anything but quiet. Japanese drag queens solicit skibe business men that pass. Ambulece sirens scream a song that is all to familiar to the locals. Just another overdose probably. I walked to a Kirin machine on the side of the street and bought a beer. Pregame is a necessity in Tokyo because a beer in a bar costs ten bucks. After finishing it off I walked into a bar I knew I could find a pretty Japanese girl that would help make my transition to day that much easier. I drank, then drank some more. The bar was packed and I gave up game for a good drunkin spurt of writing. To this day bar writing is one of my favorite past times. I drank and kept to myself. I’ve never been one for idle chit chat. I drank and as is the consequence of heavy drinking I was impelled to use the bathroom. I wobbled to the bathroom, unzipped and released a flow so robust that I feel that even the swift Amazon would of given me props. As the last few drops dripped from my wick a pounding sounded at the door. “Just a sec” I slurred. I washed my hands. The pounding continued. “Hold on”. I belched. I checked my hair and the pounding continued. “Damn man, I’m done, I’m done.” And as I opened the door I was shoved inside that small bath room by two men. They proceeded to pound the ever living shit out of me. When their monkey urges had been filled they took my wallet, which was funny enough cause it was empty (the fruit of it’s contents had just been flushed down the toilet), and split. As they left I looked at them and found they were two american sailors. I had traveled across the world to get jumped by two american sailors. That’s when I started to think the hatred other nations had for us might be well grounded. I was a bloody mess but thankfully nothing was broken. A dancer who worked at the bar took me home and tended to my wounds. :) She told me, and many others after, that I was to good to be american. That I wasn’t just another killer. Most times national pride would make me puff out my cheeks in indignation but sometimes, more lately, I would wonder if what they said might be true. Is senseless violence part of being American. I wonder still.

The art of staying one step behind

So many memories. They seem to be the only real tender of my life. One night in Asheville North Carolina, I was taught a lesson on how being a step behind isn’t always that bad. A dark dance. Vampires and warlocks converged upon an old hotel in the middle of town to throw a rave. Pale white faces and obsidian cloths marked the trend for this occasion. I being I wore nothing but white. I hate trends, they are the very antithesis of creative power. The feeling inside was one of destruction. These inept devils thought they could disrupt orderly force by joining their energy in dance. Although I understood their displeasure with the current political atmosphere, it was the time when America invaded Iraq, I felt destruction to combat destruction was nonsense. So I danced. In many ways I am a Sufi poet of old. I spin and in my cyclone, my will, my energy, is thrown off. I am an electro magnetic plant of peace preserving powers, although my detractors would say I only cause more strife by instilling descent upon their objective. I twirl and weave in serpentine motions using chaos to reestablish order. The vampires in that room both hated me for what I stood for and loved me for the shear magnitude of my force. Power is an addiction for them even if it does contradict their own actions. Dancing is movement meditation. Tai Chi, of which I am well versed, is just a complex dance meant to still the mind and pacify the forces without. I danced, twisting the vibes of malcontent spit from the DJ’s device into promises of hope through active questioning. It is easy to destroy, it’s harder to ask the simple question of why. Nature seemed to agree with the Goth girls and boys, heavy drops fell from the sky obscuring what would of been a beautiful spring night. I sat out side, smoking a cigarette and cooling off from my exertions when I asked the sky why we were only able to react after the fact. Many knew the war was coming but few did anything about it. It’s wonderful when life answers back. As I sat on the pavement, I have no compunctions about silly social does and don’ts, I watched a couple slowly walk towards me from my right. They were a beautiful picture of companionship. Hand in hand, walking shoulder to shoulder in order to make use of the small umbrella they walked beneath. Smiles of completion rested securely on their lips and I envied them for it. Being a traveler is great at times, wonderful even, but one of the things you give up is any idea of a solid relationship. I’ve had plenty of romance in my life, romance takes only moments, but a real relationship takes years and I was always unable to put in the time. The curse of itchy feet. As I watched this beautiful scene of connection a loud roar sounded from my left. Looking over I found a pick up truck that radiated intolerance. A good ’ol boy in red base ball cap and dirty wife beater drove towards me, towards the couple, with a look of complete menace. If that wasn’t enough his license plate read “Ihay8u. From my right walked love and from my left approached hate. The couple never faltered a step, they just kept walking in their sphere of bliss. The good ’ol boy kept driving, revving his engine in imitation of pestilence’s hoarse. As the two crossed paths the red neck of the apocalypse swerved, putting his tire into a large puddle on the side of the street. Water sprayed everywhere but the couple, who had never wavered nor slowed their pace, were miraculously one step behind the spray. Life had answered and for that I smiled.

A true dream in China

True dreams. Whether programmed in by man or God there have been times I’ve been aloud to peak up the future’s dress and I must admit, I’m a bit of a perv about those things. Can’t ever get my fill. For five months I had been studying mandarin in a small school on the eastern coast of China. I wanted to devour everything eastern in order to better define what it meant to be a westerner. Like many Americans I suffer from a bout of a poorly defined national identity. Truth be told I was a poor student. I was more interested in the streets, the life the common zhung guo ren led. I picked up conversational Chinese fast but my written skills fell to wayside having no intentions of ever attempting to read a paper (U have to learn about 32,000 characters before you can read a news paper) . The term had ended and I was going to get kicked out of the dorms. I knew I wanted to travel on but I had no idea in which direction, east or west. Although originally I had planned to travel south west to India I had been recently fascinated by the Japanese students that shared the dormitory with me. They had this indescribable class, everything they did they did well. The more I talked to them, we spoke in Chinese ‘cause that was the only common language between us, the more I wanted to see Japan. I went online to find an airline ticket to Tokyo and found the price was 1000 bucks and so immediately gave up all hopes on visiting. And so, a couple of nights before I had to pack up and leave, I had a dream. Only until recently have I been aloud to remember my dreams. For a period of about 20 years I was cut off entirely from the dream world. When I was five I had a gift, I was lucid dreamer with complete control. I would literally choose what the dreams would entail, fall asleep, and fall into a world of my own making. As the years past however I was cut off entirely from this gift and given only darkness. There were times though, rare and beautiful, that I was given remembrance. I called them True Dreams because someone or something had pushed back the curtain in order for me to grasp their significance. I was dancing a wild rhythmic rampage of sufic glee. I could feel the smile , that true smile so rarely enjoyed, saturating my soul. Music, that was familiar yet foreign, played while thousands of dragonflies swam above my head. In the distance sat Mount Fuji ringed by clouds. I awoke knowing it would be a day. I dressed and went to work. At the time I had a job teaching Chinese children English. My co-teacher, a Chinese girl that had tried to sucker me into matrimony, asked me why I was smiling. She said she had never seen me smiling so broadly. Enigmatic as always I replied, “Because God spoke to me last night”. After class another American teacher at the school, of whom to do this day I still believe to a CIA agent, told me that Phish was going to be playing in Japan at the Fuji Rock festival. I was, am, a big fan of Phish shows. They are one of the last gathering places for Gypsies and the energy they hold can be felt in body and soul. I couldn’t contain my glee and so I burst out laughing. God had truly spoken to me and all I could was laugh. I returned to my dorm room and found a note on my door. One of Japanese friends had wanted to see me and so walked to his room thinking nothing yet expecting everything. He told me that he was going home to Japan on a boat that cost 100 dollars and wondered if I wanted to come along. He said I could stay with his family until I figured out what I wanted to do next.. And that was that. In one day my course had been set with all the hows and whys presented before me. One of the most memorable things about that 3 day concert were the hundreds of dragonflies that swam above my heads. I wish God could tell me what to do now. I’m as lost as a lemming who can’t find a cliff.

The meaning of life in Fargo

Toil. That was the word the clerk at the porn shop in Fargo told me was the temporal meaning of his life. Walking into this Mecca for masterbators I was greeted by dildos and various creams. A wall of videos delineating themselves from the rest by exposing it’s signature sex act on a glossy box. One of these sexual Mandala’s held the image of a woman pleasing herself with a log. Laws of physics be damned. After having lit a lid outside, tenderizing my tendons for the long bus ride ahead, I walked upon this temple to the testosterone and decided it was worth a peep. I sauntered in with the gait of someone newly initiated into the world of smoke and porn and I let my eyes buzz about this hedonist hive of honey coated eye candy. The aforesaid clerk sat behind a high desk reading Descartes. This was entirely to much for my already glee soaked noggin. I giggled in short bursts having a difficult time keeping it in. He was this clean cut college kid reading philosophy in a world I always associated with denial. “My wife gives it up all the time I’m just boning up on a few positions!” Denial. “I’m no pervert. The female form is an art” Denial. “This proves I’m a heterosexual” and again denial. This clerk broke my comfortable stereotype and for that I was elated. I walked up to him and asked him the one question I knew would help me pin down his personality in such short notice. “If you had to choose one word to describe the meaning of life what would it be”? “Toil my friend, toil.”

The foundations of my formulations

Please allow me to introduce you to the five year old Erasmus Trout. Of coarse he was a stump. A squat shrub with bushy brown foliage. Blue eyes bloomed like spring time Iris’s. Cherub cheeks blazed like Homer’s beloved dawn. Teachers and butchers and other such knowledgeable authorities pegged him as hyper-active. An observable redundancy when taking into account the tremors that overtook him when standing still and the imaginary thoroughbreds that galloped beside him when aloud to roam. To put it simply, spastic energy dripped from his soul like the steady stream of drool dribbling down from his beatific smile. The five year old Erasmus feared nothing, forgot everything and forever formulated the foundations of his ego. To put pride aside Erasmus was a fairly unique boy for his age. Even at the tender age of five the stumpy shrub understood he had a purpose which was, to quote the little adrenaline avatar directly, “I’m gonna be a super hero”! Not Spiderman mind you, or Aquaman or even Nietzchie’s superman but a self diagnosed oddity cognizant of the magnificent manipulations his mind could produce. Imagination had a lot to do with it. Imagination and persistence had everything to do with it actually.

Life and death in the Philipines

For two years I had been wandering in between the creeks and cracks of Asia. I had learned how to listen to Om from the Tibetans and how to speed walk while staying inwardly still from the Japanese. Kung Tzu’s dialects had been whispered to me by spirit scholars in Xian and I had met Angels and Demons on the beaches of Ko Pang Gan. I was living a life of spiritual momentum, that is until I landed in Manila.

I had just left Tokyo for the second time. Tourist visas being what they are I was obliged to leave the country after three months of stay. I knew a few expats who deemed this law trivial but I was never the one to risk imprisonment. After quitting my job as a cook in a small American sports bar I headed towards the Philippines in order to continue my adventure. At this time my wallet had grown quite light. The money I had saved two years ago had all been spent. On top of that although I had a round trip ticket back to Japan I was afraid I my entry would be rejected. I had heard stories about travelers getting stopped at customs upon their third entry in one year. They were held in the airport until they could find a way back to their own country. I toured the islands of the Philippines for a month but when my funds grew dry I returned to Manila in order to decide whether or not I should just go home. The night before my flight to Tokyo I wandered the streets in order clear my head. I knew I didn’t want to go home but the idea of getting rejected at the gates didn’t seem all that nice either.

I walked, winding through back alleys, searching for an answer. Thankfully life graced me with one. Not paying attention to where I was going I had wandered upon a funeral held on the side of a small street. I looked within a small open casket and found dead child laying inside. After my initial shock and sadness I looked about me and found that the moarning family was playing cards. They sat around the coffin on small chairs, trading money with each hand. I was shocked, having this western attitude of do's and don’ts for solemn occasions such as this.

 I walked away, back to my hotel, totally transfixed by this event. After another hour of searching, I had gotten quite lost, I found my pension house and settled into one of the plush chairs in the lobby. A Philippino business man, of whom I had become fast friends, wandered in and immediately I told him of my experience. He said that it was normal, that many Philippinos like to play cards at funerals. “How can they play games, aren’t they grieving”? I was fairly distraught. “They are grieving. In life you either go flush or go bust and it’s just luck one way or another. All life is a gamble. I think they just want to remind themselves of that fact”. All life is a gamble and so that’s what I did, I gambled. I got on the plane the next day willing to take my chances with fate. Luckily I drew a good hand.

When alchole asks why not it takes a stronger man than I to refuse its wisdom. "Why not create a blog, sharing is as close to sesame street that I'll ever get". Sobriety, ever the nag, just says whatever I write will be stolen and posted on some porn site to drive up traffic. As if my viewing habits weren't traffic enough.

Drunk off rum and lost love however has emboldened me to the point where I can post with impunity to my neurosis. Hopefully I can keep up this chemical haze
so that iI can continue to astound you with my asyasymmetrical sense of beauty.