NEWSPEAK Blog

On Violation

1.

As many of you might know, I haven't been feeling particularly great. My body has resisted much of what South America has been throwing at me, over the past four-point-five months, but as soon as we hit the arid mountains of Peru, it sort of just gave up, fell over, and waved a white flag.

When we finally reached the Inkan heartland of Cusco, my most successful days included lots of sitting around on benches, between stops at the toilet. So this is, on Friday, what Jon and I did, during a glorious sunny spell. We wandered amongst Cusco's many town squares, sitting and enjoying cool drinks and popsicles (until I had to run to the loo), doing some light-reading or people-watching.

Anyway, in this one Plaza, we noticed a bunch of college students milling around, so we thought we would sit down and observe. We found a nice, sunny bench, and I whipped out my sunglasses and everything was grand. Once in awhile, people selling textiles or socks or encyclopedias would stop and ask if we wanted any, and we would smile and decline.

So it wasn't unusual to notice a smiling old man amble towards us. I was preparing to ward him off with a "No, Senor. Gracias," when he stopped and started talking to us. Now, we've been in South America for a long time - long enough to pick up at least a couple clue words from peoples' sentences - but this dude had us stumped. We weren't sure if he was asking us something, or begging for money, so we used our appropriated line, and shook our heads. And then the man touched my knee, touched Jon's knee, and then POKED Jon in the crotch. Then he giggled, and walked away.

I was stunned, and my mouth fell open.

"Did that really just happen?" I asked Jon, expecting him to bound off after the guy, or at least be crying, "Are you okay? Do you feel violated?!"

He shrugged.  "Nah, he just sort of got me in the zipper.  He didn't touch any, uh, machinery."

We ended up laughing about it, later, with our Irish friends, who suggested the man wasn't a total pervert, and in fact, he might have been a Shaman who was just giving Jon a fertility blessing.

2.

Here in Cusco, we are staying at the world's favourite hippy hangout. In the front foyer, there is a huge sign advertising San Pedro Cactus tours, where the hostel takes people into the wilderness for a three day hallucinogenic bender. The best part, though, is when the advertisement claims that San Pedro, amongst other revelations, will "Tell you who you really are." We didn't know this before we booked a room there, but apparently everyone who wants to do San Pedro shows up on our hostel's doorstep, so you can imagine the kinds of people we are sharing quarters with.

ANYWAYS, overall, the place is alright. The rooms are dingy but clean, painted nice bright colours, and plastered in bad paintings of people meditating. For our first couple nights, we were stuck in a room with two twin beds, and so we each joyfully got to sleep by ourselves (this was especially good for Jon, who was sick of waking every time I had to get up and go to the bathroom, each night). As our room only had one tiny window facing the courtyard, it got dark fairly quickly and we easily fell into a deep, wonderful sleep.

That is, until very early Saturday morning, when I awoke to Jon screaming, "Fuuuuuuuck! Fuuuuuuucking fuuuuuuck!" and jumping in the air, out of bed, and scrambling towards the door. He flipped on the lights, and I shot up, expecting a grapefruit-sized tarantula, a murderer with a knife, or a scorpion. But there, nestled in his bed, was a white cat.

Jon was shuddering, "It was purring!  It was in my dreams!"

The cat had somehow, through the tiny window, climbed through a crack and into bed with the most vehement cat-hater in the world.

I climbed out of bed and tried to shoo the cat out of the room, and as it wouldn't move I picked it up, clawing and hissing, and shoved it out the door. I sighed. It probably had fleas, so I went and woke the night guard and asked for new sheets, and as I came back with them, Jon had climbed into my bed, still shivering, staring at me wide-eyed.

"It was purring," he said, "And the sound was in my dream."

I ripped the sheets off the bed and slid on new ones, and as I sat down on his bed, ready to try to get some more sleep, Jon stared at me wide-eyed.

"Its kinda funny," I said.

"Megan," he said, "I feel violated."

In Which I Might Or Might Not Be Going Mental

We´ve been in Curitiba for the past few days, due to the Brazilian winter overtaking our delicious island holiday on Ilha Grande. It´s a lovely city - full of thick, tree-set parks and quality public transport. In a few days you´ll see here my green opinion on the city, but for now I am going to dwell in a large puddle of self-pity, as the dark cloud of winter has also decended on my soul.

God, I know what you are saying: "She´s all, 'Poor me! I´ve got to travel and not have a real job!´ She is lame AND short-sighted, and also she is slowly losing her chin."

But, seriously. This trip is doing manic things to my sanity. Up and down, on and off the bus, new cities and new problems - it´s all the time and never ending fight-or-flight adrenalin. Where to sleep, eat, who to talk to, what to say, where to go and not go, always watching the bags and worrying about the contents - and just when I am starting to relax into a place or situation, we´re off again.

It is also totally making my hair prematurely gray.

I knew when I started this trip that I would have problems with the lack of routine. I can´t help it; I am retardedly habitual. I like my mornings at work to start a half-hour early, with coffee and the NYT, followed by toast with email, and finally digging into the to-do list with my weekly This American Life podcast or other NPR. It´s not how it pans out every morning, but it´s how I like it. And, pathetically, it makes me happy.

I guess I thought we´d be able to cobble together some sort of routine - a run every morning, a daily nap, time away to write or shoot - something, anything that might remind me I am human and not a walking suitcase which pours out money at various tourist outlets.

But with our schedule and simple geographic changes, it hasn´t been at all the case. We´re too tired from night buses to get up and run; we´re awake when its night and tired in the day; our neighbours at the paper-thin-walled hostel have really loud old-people sex TWICE in the night (yeah, good for them, right?); our choices for dinner on the bus are Ruffles or Doritos; there´s no time to charge the ol´ iPod; I can´t shoot because I´ve got explosive diahrrea - god, it´s everything. It´s just fucking impossible to carve out a normal life for myself at the moment, and it might very well be driving me insane.

We were dropping off our bags at the bus station lockers this morning, so we could roam around town, and as I waited in line to ask about prices, I saw this funky-looking woman rounding the corner. She was lovely and all of 20, with her auburn hair standing up in a dozen wee ponytails around her head, and a thick gold velveteen coat wrapped around her tiny frame, carrying a leather briefcase. Oh, I thought, she looks fun and arty. I wonder what her story is.

It was only when I rounded the corner that I noticed her carrying on a full conversation with herself, the grey opaque tights torn at the heels where she wasn´t wearing shoes.

Fuck, I thought. She was so young and beautiful, so intelligent-looking and full of life, and here she was shoeless in a bus station, carrying a briefcase that contained lord knows what. Was it drugs? Was it hereditary mental illness? OR DID SHE JUST TRAVEL CONTINUALLY FOR A LONG PERIOD OF TIME AND GO INSANE?

A lot of people (like Jon) are made for the excitement and variety of this kind of travel, but as we round-off our generally great time in Brasil and head for Uruguay, I am simply becoming more familiar with my inability to cope. Instead of being fabulously thrilled that we´re going to another new country, I am craving Minnesota and my parent´s backyard and possibly even The Olive Garden, which I think is the saddest thing I have ever said.

Even last-night, as we ate at this huge family restaurant, which was voted the Guiness Book´s Largest Restaurant in 1995 (can seat 3000 people!), Jon and I joked that it felt like we were on a cruise, with the overly-dressed waiters being overly polite, and the rodizio filling our tables with plates-full of untouched food. And I said - and I am deeply shamed to admit this (as my parents always taught me that cruises were like huge sardine cans that made you fatter) - you know, right now I feel I would really enjoy a cruise. You don´t have to lug your bags around, and you get to sleep regularly and just get off the boat at the next port and back on, and there is lots of food (of which some is actually nutritious!) and on-deck pools, and you won´t have to get sandy, either.

Clearly, I am well on my way to wearing that gold velveteen coat.

Crack Watch 2008

I´m not sure if you knew this, but apparently Brazilians are Ass People.

Meaning, in a non-comprehensive study (ie: Jon and me looking around in public) of men´s appreciation of womens´ bodies, men prefer the "ass" to any other region of a woman´s vuluptulousness (be it boobs, legs, or cherubic faces). This is especially noticeable on the beach, whereby EVERY woman (and I mean every. Single. Woman.  Be she thunder thighs, multiple rolls, heaving chests and dumps in the truck, old, young and everything in between) wears a bikini that covers no more than 35% of her bottom, and ties in a teensie string situation.

It´s clearly a social rule, and it is strictly followed.

That said, I have been feeling especially prudish in my safe pink English bikini with the "full seat coverage", and so a few weeks ago in the very stylish beach resort town of Praia De Pipa, I saved up all my daily budget and self esteem, and spent it in an afternoon in the dressing rooms of a swimwear shop. I harassed the saleswoman into a state of confusion, and then spent an hour staring in the mirror, poking my thighs and wondering if I could actually get away with wearing one of these without audible laughter.

I teetered between two classy yet very flimsy versions of a bikini bottom: one where the ass had more coverage but the front was so low that a small gust of wind would send it x-rated, and the second was the opposite. I opted for the latter (more "crack", less "hoo-ha"), Jon approved the look, and the bedragled sales woman agreed it looked fine, even though, you know, MY ASS. IT WAS HANGING OUT.

And so began my on/off relationship with the string bikini bottoms. It goes like this: me on the beach, looking good in my new bikini! ON! Then: me actually in the water, noticing the bikini fill up with water and sag like a dirty diaper. OFF. Then: getting the nods from the tanned Brazilian dudes. Score. ON! And then: my ass shadow is WOBBLING. SO OFF. And on and so forth until you see me today, where Jon and I have developed a specific sign indicating the amount of public butt crack I am displaying, and whether it needs to be addressed.

It´s like a vertical swipe of his hand - a karate chop to indicate the crack itself - with the frequency of the swipe intervals indicating a more serious situation.

We call it Crack Watch 2008.  We hope you´ll join us in keeping track of the crack situation.

Today´s Crack Level: Beige (Moderate)
(swimwear worn for small amounts of time, near pool. Crack shown only when leaving or entering pool)

Amazon Trip

Since Noel has been posting food pics from Mehico, I thought I'd throw out this painfully long and poorly edited iMovie I just finished making which details my recent trip into the Amazon rainforest. My wife and I spent 2 weeks in the city of Iquitos and the Peruvian Amazon, which included a week spent living with indigenous folks in the middle of nowhere. I'm still blown away by the people and the jungle. When it hits a really long and pointless section start skipping around and you might get to see me eat a grub on a stick, or see kids living in floating houses.

In Which I Admire Carrie Underwood's Lung Capacity While Tanning

I started listening to Carrie Underwood today.  In a tanning bed.  At a healthclub.  Then I came home and ate a box of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.

Like, okay.  I was wearing 25 strength, and it was for the purpose of getting my skin used to the harsh Amazonian sun early, because the malaria pills make me sensitive to sunlight, and the Mac & Cheese was mixed with peas and soya mince, but still. I'm pretty sure this has something to do with an Uncle Sam flavoured demon taking hold of my soul and shaking out all the Americana I thought I'd left behind in high school.

Every so often, while living here in the UK, I've found myself craving something so sickeningly American that I know, were I on actual American soil, I would be absolutely ashamed to partake.  Hot dogs.  Country music.  Christian country music.  America's Next Top Model.

It's mostly when I'm homesick - lonely for company who know about This American Life, and what it was like to ride a school bus or go to an American football game.  I get sick of explaining my views on the election, or foreign diplomacy, or even just defending why not all US citizens are gun-toting neo-cons who hate gays.  I mean, I am, obviously, but there are a few out there.  I've heard.

So, then I fall back into an inexplicable form of patriotism that I make fun of others for having.  I mean, god.  Carrie Underwood AND a tanning bed.  Were I not making this public so others could laugh at me, I would totally not tell a soul.

What I think might surprise me, though, are the things I will drudge up while missing Britain.  I hate tea, I've never eaten kidney pie, and the weather has made me die a little, inside.  I have, however, toasted crumpets on an open fire, watched BBC's latest/best period drama Cranford from beginning to end (not to mention Planet Earth, which apparently is being narrated by Sigourney Weaver in the US version.  WTF?  David Attenborough, who narrates the UK original, is a LEGEND), and got a birth control implant for absolutely free, at a handy night clinic, in 50 minutes, with no prior appointment.  And, MY GOD.  THE BEANS.  The beans for breakfast have made me who I am today: a bean eater.  Of vast proportions. 

But, honestly, I've never been an anglophile.  I never even thought about England much before meeting Jon and moving here.  I have a sneaky feeling, though, that this way of life will pop up with equal or further ferocity, when I am craving a bit of comfort.

So, I guess, here's what I'd like you to picture:  6-months down the road, I'm marooned in some dodgy hostel in Santiago, in the midst of a windstorm.  I am eating beans on toast with hotdogs, listening to Carrie Underwood and reading something by Zadie Smith, and wishing there was an electric kettle I could plug in to hear the comforting whhhhrrrrr of the boiling water.

And lets be thankful, for a second, that this somewhat psychic vision of my future doesn't involve the more sinister American or British trivialities.  Like Spam.  And bad teeth.  Or bad teeth eating Spam.

See? I feel much better now.

You call this fan art Charlie Brown?

Last weekend I visited The Charles Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, California.

I'm not normally much of a museum person unless, of course, they're  odd. Or really odd.

The Schulz Museum isn't that odd but it's endlessly fascinating if, like me, you grew up reading the strip religiously. My Grandparents would clip it for me from The NY Daily News and bring me piles of them  in plastic CVS bags every few weeks. I also had dozens of the collected comic books on my shelves. I didn't start reading serious books for pleasure until I was in college so Peanuts had the sort of  influence on me that smarter folks  got from any number of more impressive titles.

Going to the museum made me appreciate Schulz in the sense that he was really a commoner who persevered. His Dad was a barber, he served in WW2 and he received his artistic training from a correspondence school where he later taught. He simply kept at it and kept refining what he did best. I remember how disturbed I was reading a series in which Lucy catalogs all of Charlie Browns personality flaws going so far as to put them in slide show form. Charlie Brown runs out of the projection room screaming. It was dark stuff for a 12 year old.

Anyway, enough sentimentalizing.  Here's some fan sketches from the museum's many books where visitors are encouraged to practice their cartooning.

Aww....

Slightly less cute, but still kinda cute...

CHARMING:

Texas: Whipping Boy of Colorado Tourist Bathroom Bards

Just back from a late-summer mini-vacation to the Sand Dunes with Ursen and thought I'd share these very important bathroom messages about Texas, which really seems to be the muse of poets at roadside rests throughout the state:

Here I sit, on the pooper

Just gave birth to a Texas State Trooper

and this:

Texas is like an old woman's pussy: you know it's down there, but you don't go there.

Texas fact of the day from wikipedia:

The phrase Don’t Mess with Texas is a slogan for the Texas Department of Transportation, and was developed to reduce littering on Texas roadways used as part of a statewide advertising campaign in 1986. The slogan was created by the Austin-based advertising agency GSD&M, which handled the campaign until 1998.

The phrase was prominently shown on road signs on major highways, as well as in television, radio and print advertisements. The campaign is credited with reducing litter on Texas highways 72% between 1986 and 1990.

More than its immediate success at reducing litter, however, the slogan became a Texas cultural phenomenon and the slogan has been appropriated by the citizens of Texas for general use. Though it appears on countless items of tourist paraphernalia, the phrase is actually a federally registered trademark; the department has tried at times to enforce its trademark rights, with limited success.

And you think we've got it bad ...

At least the city caught the problems with the Cimarron bridge before it, you know, collapsed during rush hour into the Mississippi.

I just spoke with my mom in Minnesota. She said there were schoolbuses on the bridge at the time, and flaming wreckage everywhere. Rescue helicopters are unable to reach people stranded in the river. So, okay—if earthquakes in San Francisco are God's punishment for the gay culture there and Katrina was God's punishment for topless Mardi Gras and 9/11 was God's punishment for New York's hedonism, what was Minneapolis' sin? Lutefisk? Taxation? Al Franken?

Street Sense: Cement Sack Trajedy

Please be careful at the intersection of Platte and Bijou today as some jerk dropped a bag of cement into the street and didn't even bother to clean it up. I took this picture with my phone and I plan on posting it on the city blog so this situation can be taken care of immediately. It is dangerous and everytime a car drives over it a cloud of dust fills the air which we all know could inhibit someone from seeing properly causing a terrible accident. I tried to run out and move it but I kept getting hit by scooters, skateboarders and bicycles. The city needs to bring out the hazardous waste team asap! What an outrage!

Stuff I Saw in India

Here’s a list with a few photos of stuff I saw in Delhi. I apologize for the lack of  people photos, but I’m afraid I’ve a very strong aversion to photographing poor people for the purposes of show and tell.

“Good day sir, you look authentically Third World, mind if I shoot you so folks back home will know I was knee deep in the shit?” 

I have no problem shooting itinerant animals. Especially monkeys. Especially urban monkeys who are the coolest critters ever.

 

OK, here’s the list:

• Sidewalk Barbershops: Folks strap small mirrors to trees and benches and give haircuts and shaves all over the place. One thing I regret not doing is getting an old school shave from one of these guys.
• Women riding side saddle on the back of motorcycles: You see this everywhere in Delhi. Women in beautiful saris, presumably on their way to work. I only saw one woman straddling. I told her she was a slut and would burn in Hindu hell forever.  However dangerous this may seem it’s nothing compared to…
• Families of FIVE on a motorcycle: No shit. I saw this more than once. Dad driving, mom in the middle, eldest child in the rear. I actually saw babies asleep in the middle. Just another day on the road.
• Men pissing everywhere.
• The urban cow: I realize this shouldn’t come as a surprise with India being a majority Hindu country and all, but it’s the equivalent of seeing cows in the middle of Denver’s 16th street mall. And yes, the cows all seem to have an air of entitlement.  That said, they’re often grazing on garbage. Apparently, the US state department strongly cautions against Americans driving in India because it’s fucking insane and because if you hit a cow, oh ho… fuck are you in trouble.
• Begging children: Jesus Christ. They come to your car and tap on your window prattling on in Hindi motioning their hand to their mouth. They stay for several minutes. After a day you feel awful, after a week you’re ready to tell them to fuck themselves. I didn’t see anyone giving them money.
  
• Bicycles: They’re very green friendly over there. I mean, everyday is like critical mass protest. Oh wait, no it’s just poverty. Seriously, I didn’t see a bicycle that looked like it was made later than 1962.  Lots of bike taxis and bike taxi drivers, people towing a week’s worth of sugar cane or kindling on the back of their bikes moving in and out of dense city traffic.
• A man in his late 20s or early 30s sporting, I shit you not, a Strawberry Shortcake hoodie. I’m going to venture way out on a limb here and suggest he was not being ironic.
• Lying in the street: It’s not just for bums. Not really sure of the social etiquette,  but it doesn’t seem like there’s that much stigma against lying down on the sidewalk to chill.
  
• Lots of soldiers: Some with guns looking like they’re going to fuck shit up, others riding bikes looking like they’re going to… their Grandma’s house.
• Lots of garbage: It’s a tapestry, a carpet of bags and wrappers and God knows what. So dirty it’s almost not even dirty or no more dirty than dried out grass. Who am I kidding, it’s fucking filthy.
  
• Know what you don’t see? Junk food. Fatties. People seem to eat really healthy. For every stand selling Coke, which in English is pronounced cock (“Would you like some cock?” I was asked more than once.)  you see twice as many fruit and fruit juice stands. Rock.
  
• Street smart dogs: The traffic is so completely nuts in and around Delhi that the many feral dogs walk on sidewalks and appear to look both ways before crossing the street.  Sometimes they were just hanging out in the median of a busy road looking at oncoming traffic with an expression like, “I’m not getting my mangy paws near any of that shit. Think I’ll just go to sleep…”
• Two monkeys: on a bike- one wearing a charming pink pinafore.
• Lots of toilets, not so much toilet paper.
• Trucks  brightly festooned and painted but lack tail lights.
• Three people and their goat in an auto rickshaw.
• Camels pulling the equivalent of a Tough Shed.
• Feral dogs with bulging teats.
• Road construction crews consisting of three barefoot men sharing a blowtorch.
• Unfortunate western women attempting to rock Indian garb. Shit, we had two crunchy granola lesbians pull a costume change in Frankfort so that when they arrived in Delhi they were both sporting saris… with crocs.  Barfity barf barf.
• Being offered “Indian movie snack food” (popcorn) at a Bollywood movie by a seven yeard old girl.
• Tiny Indian squirrels.
• No separation between luxury homes and slums, except for large iron gates.
• Abandoned construction:  All over the place one could find hulking concrete frames of commercial buildings.  The weirdest thing was that it was impossible to tell if the building was in the process of being gutted or built.
  
• A labor surplus which leads to 15 bellhops, multiple bathroom attendants and a consistently full glass of water on your table.  After a few days, what you wouldn’t give for a snide adolescent American waiter who just doesn’t give a fuck. that and going into a bathroom without an attendant who expects a tip for turning on the faucet and handing you a paper towel.  In the words of Peppermint Patty: Stop Calling me Sir!

In short, an amazing trip. Not relaxing mind you but certainly one that makes you aware of your privilege and appreciate peace and quiet. I mean, you just couldn't grow up in Delhi and be claustrophobic or agoraphobic. Talk about privileged neuroses.