Gonzo journalism. Creative nonfiction. Jazz prose poetry.
Systems analysis. Social autopsy. Storytelling.
Five kid friends learn, share, explore and grow in China, Cambodia, Indonesia, Turkey and Vietnam.
Everything you need to know is in this book.
This volume contains material suitable for +18.
Having no destination I am never lost. - Ikkyu (1394-1481)
Cadiz flamenco students practiced in small oval rooms once used for storing cannonballs to attack ships.
A Romani dance, flamenco was introduced in the 18th century. The essence of flamenco is the depth of a deep song or cante jondo, a lament of the marginalized Gitano. Early forms featured a single hammer striking an anvil as Romani work-music.
Inlaid flooring resounded with black-heeled thunder. A teacher clapped a steady rhythm. “Faster, faster, spin on your toes, stay light. Be the dance, be the single sharp note,” she shouted. “Eyes straight ahead.”
The small room echoed with exploding hands and feet.
In Essaouira, Morocco similar rooms with thick oval wooden doors during Portuguese exploration became working art studios for leather, metal, stone and Thule woodcarving. An artist held a sharp blade steady with one foot while spinning a wheel turning sweet smelling wood. Mint tea aroma filled the air.
“See my shop mister, buy a carpet,” a chorus of boys sang to a ghost. They called me Ali Baba - thief - because my beard was white from life and my apparition scared them.
“Hey, Ali Baba,” implored a destitute youth. “See my shop. Only the best price for you.”
“Just passing through.”
Boys pounded metal, carved wood, tore mint leaves, sat on haunches babbling dreams and beat dusty silk carpets hanging from rusty nails in the sun.
In Cadiz I collected new material in an old city as stories and songs drifted on sea trade winds. Short-wave reception was clear. A classical Spanish station. A British announcer on World Outlook said, “... in twenty-five minutes we discuss the British solution and new world order to solve poverty, racism, violence, hatred and greed.”
I knew it’d be a great program as the world waited to hear how it would all be decided. Flip a coin. Buy a lottery ticket.
U.S. Rota Navy military radio network mumbled about “disease, helmet safety, unified field states, crashed helicopters, fatalities, future funerals and getting your uniform in order at old Roman navel bases.”
Bases were empty in the top of the ninth. Looks like extra innings. Stay tuned for sustained climate crisis and global financial catastrophe.
At Benjumeda #3, Omar my amanuensis and I shared a round table and open doors on a green and black tiled balcony. Yellow streetlights led up a narrow way below a sliver of cobalt sky. Starlight met star bright. No cell phone. We were connected with friends and strangers through transmutation. Perfecto.
Lost, forlorn, dejected Francophone and Germanic tourists inside the labyrinthine maze of Cadiz streets carried local maps, guidebooks and optical equipment. Men lugged all the heavy stuff on their Homeric voyage of discovery; water, packs, video machines and high tech 35mm point and shoot optics. They were intent on recording their experiences with miles to go before they slept, perchance to dream their impossible dream.
They craned sunburned necks toward balconies trying to interpret street signs. Looking for a way away anyway. They looked up, down at maps, talked, argued, pointing in opposite directions. They had to make a decision. They were confused and lost down at the crossroads making a pact with Satan in a Catholic country.
The women on their traveling team intuitively knew where they were and where they were going. With infinite patience they sighed and plodded on in a spouse’s shadow. They admired history, cathedrals, plazas, the Atlantic Ocean, museums and cafes.
Nobody understood them. Spanish smiles disguised as apathy followed their quest. Visitors appreciated how rising middle class economics and artistic vision allowed craftsmen to work on themes other than religion. Tourists suffered from religious art overload.
It was everywhere. Laminated images of Jesus on key chains dangled from men’s pockets. Carved Virgin Mary icons crying bloody tears decorated store windows. Her statute of limitations hung from dusty rafters in shops and bars. She watched people suffer. She was their redemption and lottery ticket to paradise. Gilt and guilt reflected sacrifice. Marbled voices sang choir hymns.
High solid wooden doors with brass reinforcements protected a woman’s hospital. Reception rooms overflowed with crying children needing a mother’s connection and intention. Widowed women in eternal black followed church bells to catered Immaculate Receptions for spiritual visions.
Spanish smokers crowded streets. Two young lovers hid in a doorway. He groped his girl’s firm small breasts. Rosebud. She slid a cautious hand inside stone washed denim releasing his hard desire. She salivated.
“Kiss it,” he moaned.
“What if I get pregnant?”
“We’ll get married, raise piglets and live off the state.”
“A state of mind?”
Explosions rocked their being.
Satisfied and wrapped on scooters they blasted their way down cobblestone streets looking for sanctuary. Children ate junk food, chips, and sweets before tossing empty packages on the street with satisfied oral gratification and they couldn’t care less.
Jeans and mountain climbing boots were the latest fashion rage. Extended families walked through stone passages inside their waking nightmare. Half the population pushed prams as the other half struggled on canes and crutches toward Lourdes.
It’s a long walk.
Bitter unemployed Andalusia men stood silent on wrought iron rusted balconies. They watched singing gremlins gnomes and sheep propelled by market forces escape caves… “We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of OZ.”
Mothers and wives heated water, poured in Ace detergent, scrubbed, washed and rinsed baby clothing, hanging them on balconies with iridescent green, yellow, and blue plastic clothes pins. They peered up and down the street from Moorish entrances and disappeared into darkness safe from the mean old world.
It was a great city for discovering shadows and passageways with nooks and crannies, secret hideouts, alleys and recessed caverns. Now you see them now you don’t reminded a ghost of tribes in Afghan mountain caves.
The quick and the dead remembered Senior Drill Sergeant Prude in Misery. I felt right at home.
Spanish women intent on cleaning embedded rocks assaulted cobblestones with brooms and mops. Water and stones discussed time’s erosion. Spanish women did all the heavy work.
They were emancipated. They were free from conservative repressive social norms and expectations.
They did not sing. I did not hear joy escape their throats. Their faces manifested resignation.
They emptied buckets of dirty mop water in the gutter. Sparrows found salvation. Seeing free relatives take flight caged balcony birds sang sad Romani songs about loneliness and alienation.
Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir
I passed an old man smoking a Cuban cigar in shafting light.
Well-heeled Cadiz women with and without children in wheeled prams shoveling sweets into infantile mouths paraded past palms on Iglesias de San Juan de Dios navigating inlaid stones near a cafe with Novelty metal chairs holding tired tourists and relaxed locals smoking, drinking coffee, talking in tongues, devouring soft hot pastries and studying creased maps filled with historical referential diagrams.
Furrowed foreign brows watched humanity find its way.
Shirt starched waiters scurried from table to table. They placed orders with women behind counters wearing white lab tech coats.
The lone plaza resident, a tall black-bearded Romani madman with untied tennis shoes roamed perimeters looking for someone to hustle. Looking for Charity’s leftovers.
A sign around his neck said, “I came here in the 9th century and I’m not going away.”
I remembered the Bedouin woman in her heavy black chador revealing her eyes to the world hovering in Marrakech shadows. I ate chicken, rice, and bread away from birds basting on gas fired yellow circles.
Her motivation? Hunger. Hunger for freedom, dignity, and love.
She approached me with her hand out, speaking Arabic, “May you have blessings and prosperity.”
“May God make it easy for you. I will leave food for you. Wait.”
She stood across the street seeing through fabric slits. Her eyes were the world. She was silent and invisible.
Wild cats roamed malnourished skeletons around tables escaping a waiter’s swift shoe. She watched and waited. I fed scraps to hissing cats fighting over bones. We were all surviving in frail circumstances.
Remembering Omar’s wisdom about consumption and hospitality I didn’t eat everything. I left to pay. The waiter couldn’t clear the table because he was figuring the charges. Her blackness closed in. We were a team. She was free to collect everything. She produced a plastic bag from her chador, picked up the plate and dumped in bones, meat, rice, and tomatoes. The works.
She glided into shadows. I walked past. Our eyes locked. I was naked. She was covered in her belief. Her invisible clear eyes flashed a brief recognition. I nodded. She smiled under her veil. Our relationship of mutual respect ignored verbal language.
Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir
Bhaktapur, Nepal
I took a night bus to Cadiz where a stain glass explorer named C. Colon sailed west dear Nina searching for gold, importing greed and converting heathen slaves with persecution and misery.
It was difficult raising funds from a skeptical king and queen intent on expanding their empire.
My inner child, poet and literary outlaw spent six days in the San Francisco Hotel establishing geographical bearings enjoying bistro tapas, meat, cheese, bread, fruit and veggies from the central market or Mercado. It was a 30-year flashback after the kissing the army goodbye when I passed through carrying a pack Jack.
I walked into the tourism office off De Dios Plaza. I got to the point with in and out dialogue.
“I need help.”
Three little English words said everything.
Patricia helped me make some calls. After settling in with a Romani family I visited her to say thanks. She said, “You know, we get a lot of people in our office, all nationalities looking for something and while most of them are nice some are really terrible.”
“I understand. Kind ones are a blessing. I’ve met some disconnected neurotic people on life’s road. Too many are rude and not sensitive to diverse cultures. Others fall into two distinct groups. The whiners and the complainers.”
“Yes,” she laughed, “that’s a good one. The reason I decided to help you was the way you just came in and said, ‘I need help.’ It was refreshing.”
“I’m fortunate,” I said, “seeing the challenges. My limited Spanish wouldn’t help me find a room. That’s why I came to see you.”
“It was the way you did it,” said Patricia.
“A three-year child taught me those three little words. I really appreciated your help. I’ll be back.”
My room with meals for thirty days was $500.
Amelia was an overweight diabetic who ate extremely fast, her husband Jesus resembled Ichabod Crane and son Janus, 20, was a mental case. He studied engineering in school and lay around the flat watching soccer on television with the volume at full blast or playing computer games.
His father hustled cheap scarves along chipped yellow walls outside the Mercado across from his local bar where Amelia nursed her daily wine.
Another resident was Dortmund, a gay German flight attendant for ABC airline working the South American circuit. He had a room for a month studying Spanish with a private teacher from 9-12.
“It’s great being here, no one knows where I am and I like it like that. Nothing to do but study.” He carried a cell phone. One day we met in an Internet cafe. “Hi Dortmund. How’s it going?”
“Great. I’m on-line with a guy in Germany. This is a great chat room. We’re talking about getting together when my studies are finished.”
Dortmund spent a lot of time chatting with guys on-line and looking at his mobile. The city was a relaxed place for his midnight encounters as bars and cafes spilled fictional people into romance novels. He was overjoyed. Spanish was a language of lust. Exotic perfume. Forbidden fruit hung heavy and ripe for the picking.
My Cadiz room was small, noisy and perfect for completing a sentence. My life sentence was a metaphor savoring my time on Earth. Living on the edge has the advantage of being sharper there.
There is no there there.
Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir
A writer in Burma.
After doing my work at ground zero for two months in Morocco I leaped on a ferry from Tangiers to Algeciras, Spain.
An American woman from a lonely-hearts club tour group in Scottsdale, Arizona said hello.
“Hi, my name is Jean.”
“Hi, I’m Timothy Grasshopper. Nice to meet you.”
She opened a small book of quicksilver questions about life as a nomad, how it worked, how one survived. She gave me a multiple-choice exam to satisfy her curiosity.
“How does it work?”
“How does what work? The universe?”
“Moving around like this. Do you get scared?”
“No. I pay attention. I avoid choke points on the street. I trust my instincts. I see everyone before they see me. I am a ghost in exile. Invisible.”
“I was petrified in Tangiers. We were hustled by every child in the city.”
“They’re hungry. There’s huge poverty in Morocco. Fear of hunger and starvation and loneliness is a daily reality. One person supports thirteen. The majority makes less than $1.00 a day.”
“Yes I suppose so but I hope not. This is my first time away from the states. Some of my friends were afraid to leave after 9/11. They stayed in Arizona and Boston.”
“The media sells fear after 9/11. It’s a snake eating its tail if you know what I mean. What goes around comes around. Hello karma. Why did you leave?”
“My husband died a few years ago and I just sat around and then some friends got me interested in social activities. They told me about this tour, you know, stay in a Spanish coastal resort and see the sights with a day trip to Morocco. Then they stayed home after 9/11. Afraid to get on a plane.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your husband. Grief is part of the process. Letting go. Were you married long?”
“Twenty years. We were high school sweethearts.”
“Did you travel much?”
“Only around the states.”
“That’s a good beginning. I hitched around the states in high school and survived a year in Nam. Then I explored Europe, the Middle East, China, and Tibet. It’s evolving like a dream. One life, no plan, many adventures.”
“That’s really exciting. I wish I had the nerve to do something like that, just get up and go. This has been really good for me, it’s opened my eyes to a lot of things.”
“If you want to do amazing things you need to take amazing risks. We adapt, evolve and adjust. What have you learned?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Things like handling my luggage, realizing I brought way too much stuff. Stuff I don’t need, things I could have left behind. But of course I didn’t know any better. Seeing other people and their expectations, their attitudes being American. How many are loud and boring, childish really, like they’re in some foreign amusement park, how they give the impression of being rich, rude and stupid. The way some of them treated the Moroccans was just terrible. Everyone has their bias and prejudices.”
“Welcome to the freak show. I’ve observed kindness and stupidity. There are way too many idiotic crass tourists on the loose. No sensitivity or tolerance. Others are kind and polite. A day trip is only a fragment isn’t it?”
“I didn’t know any better. It’s part of the package. I’d love to come back on my own or with a friend someday.”
“Morocco is amazing. Hospitality. If you return I suggest you travel south into the Atlas Mountains and west to the coast. Get away from cities. Stay with people in villages.”
“Yes,” she said seeing a blue sea. “It’d be nice to go further.”
“Travel is the real education. Experiences are teachers. It’s essential to slow down and see with new eyes. We see through our eyes not with our eyes. Sit down in one place for a long time. Engage your senses.”
“Yes, I feel a little better now. Where are you going?”
“I left the states September 1st for six months. I’m going to Cadiz for a month, sit down, write and explore. Satisfy food, shelter and unconscious creative needs.”
“How exciting. What will you write about?”
“Experiences in Morocco and beyond. I was there on 9/11. Two months absorbing diverse realities. Using humor and satire with imagination and truth I will write about governments and media creating fear to advance their dystopian goals of social and psychological Control and greed ...
... I’ll write about illusions of fear and suffering as characters discuss how propaganda manipulates people. How humans face personal and collective desire, anger, ignorance, adventure and surprise on their quest for individuation. We are all connected on emotional and intellectual levels of awareness. Cadiz is the oldest city in Europe ...
... After a month I will live in an isolated mountain pueblo for the winter. My discipline is 1,000 words a day or two hours of revision. Polishing is the party. Next spring I’ll return to Tacoma, build a tree house, plant roses, caress thorns and write a book. I have a gonzo attitude. Be a master journalist with the eye of a photographer and the balls of an actor.”
“That must be exciting. They tell us every day where we’re going, what we’re going to see, where we’re going to eat, what time the bus leaves, where we will sleep, and who knows what. It’s a bit too much.”
“Hey, it’s your first time out. Think of it as a test run seeing how a tour package works. What you like and don’t like. You can use your experience to plan new independent adventures.”
“Yes, I like the idea and potential of being independent.”
“It’s a test with compensations. You are a free spirit in a free world.”
“Yes I am. I’ve always wanted to go to Greece.”
“Good for you. You’ll make it.”
“I’ll research it when I get home. You’ve been a big help. Nice meeting you.”
“Be well. Forget the words and cherish the ideas.”
She joined her group wearing nametags for a photograph with the sea sparkling blue and green foaming white.
Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir
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