Wanderlust Heaven!

I sat by the duchess at tea,
She asked: do you fart when you pee?
I replied, with some wit:
Do you belch when you shit?
Which, I think, left the honors with me.
-Limerick (obviously)

I’ve been working my way through my monthly mail stash. Getting through my many magazines tends to take 10-14 days, during which time I read like a fiend. Opened the quarterly magazine from my alma mater, Tufts University, and saw that they had excerpted my blog on one of the early pages. Cool. It was the bit on my visiting Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok to get vaccines and figure out my blood type. A decent piece to feature, it was a complete yet brief story and, I imagine, slightly adventurous for those chained to their desks. That said, I’ve heard from precisely zero friends, which I interpret to mean that I’m about the only person who bothers to actually read the magazine in any detail.

I’ve been thinking about this blog lately, having now passed the 500 page mark. For the past year and a half I’ve occasionally wondered if I should be doing anything else with it – trying to get paid advertising linked to it, leveraging it for a book, using it as a springboard for a set of short stories. For now I think I’ve settled on the last option, but none are mutually exclusive (putting aside copyright and ownership issues for now). And some of you know I’ve finally gotten going on writing a few stories, some for submission to contests and magazines. I’ve shared these drafts with some of you, and friend Johann responded with some very helpful, much-needed hard-hitting feedback. In a nutshell, he told me that I was guilty of cutting and pasting from the blog, that the stories were muddled, and that my characterization was weak. All quite accurate. At least he didn’t call me ugly. Now I see that I need to start with a blank page and structure the story much like a slide deck. Johann and I worked together at Monitor for years, during which time I gave him lots of feedback on his work – life is long and now it’s time for him to return the ‘favor.’ And I appreciate his candor, and the thoughtfulness and care he took in preparing his feedback. This weekend I aim to sit down and start re-working these stories.

Saw in Bean Me Up’s magazine/book rack a paperback copy of The Book of Dave by Will Self. Snatched it right up. The premise of the book is that an insane cab driver named Dave writes a journal full of his ravings, which is later buried for centuries and one day found by a future civilization which celebrates Dave as a prophet. I’ve got the hardcover back in Boston – last year I bought one for myself and one for brother-in-law Dave for his birthday. I didn’t get to it before taking off, and didn’t relish carting around the big hardcover, so left it at home along with a bunch of other heavy tomes. Now I’ll be able to read the softcover here in Goa and cross that one off my slowly decreasing backlog of books in my possession…it’s incredible that I’m still working my way through books I ordered from Amazon.com three years ago. What was I thinking??

Some intrigue here at Bean Me Up this week. Headwaiter and anointed one Bini told Lisa (the owner) that he was quitting, effective December 20th. Bini has been moody lately, and his British girlfriend’s coming here on the 19th…but his revelation was still a shocker and plunged Lisa and Richard into the depths. One of Bini’s drivers for wanting to quit: he wants to spend a lot of time with his British girlfriend when she’s here. I think that’s a bad reason for quitting – first, when you have a girlfriend you better be making some scratch (or else), and second, any girl that would bug you to quit your job just to free up some time is pure trouble and should be erased from your life. More on that in a minute.

I felt for Lisa – she’s been pinning her hopes on Bini to step up and help her expand BMU to Calangute and other locations; I’ve often wondered if Bini’s got the toughness to play that role. He’s a lovely guy, but seems to lack critical self-reflection and the ability to solve problems and make decisions in a methodical manner. Sometimes he goes on and on and you wonder what the hell he’s talking about. And sure enough, the very next day he changed his mind and soon sat down with Lisa to recant and atone. She put him through the wringer – as was her right. His anointment has been postponed, if not deleted, and for now he’ll need to prove himself in Lisa’s eyes. And guess what – now his British girlfriend may not come this Xmas, she seems ‘confused’ and is not sure she wants to come here. Yeesh. Bini me boy, keep thy job. I’m ordinarily all for being unemployed and footloose, but only after you’ve ticked off a few boxes first.

Came back from the gym the other night and watched a ‘fire show’ put on at BMU by Sergei, a wiry Russian dude. The usual tossing of burning batons, fire-breathing, etc. Lisa’s got a bunch of shows planned for the upcoming weeks – she’s exceptionally skilled at conceiving, planning and designing for these types of events. BMU is having a New Year’s Eve party this year, and Lisa’s flyer/ticket has a baby smoking a cigar (blunt?), being dragged into the New Year by Father Time. Quite creative and very funny.

I’ve been riding my motorbike around a lot lately. I’m sure I’ve written in earlier Goa postings that there are few pleasures equal to simply riding a motorbike around this place. Today I went to Mapusa just to mail a couple postcards, including one to nephew Jacob, who will soon be four. The ride to Mapusa is fun – about a half hour, with lots of curves and a few inclines that provide soaring views. Last night I left the gym and rode back to BMU. En route a snake slithered in front of my bike; I just missed it. Later on, as I rode over a small bridge, a flock of white birds (sort unknown) flew overhead, and I sat there and watched them as they flew, painted against a light blue evening sky. Didn’t have my camera with me – that would have been a brilliant shot.

Have been busy making flight bookings for next spring. Need to go to the US East Coast in April for my 15th business school reunion. Couldn’t find any available frequent-flyer seats departing India around then – and eventually settled on a roundtrip between Cebu and New York. I’ll need to get to and from Cebu, but that shouldn’t be too hard. Will also give me a chance to see some friends there and spend a few days scuba-diving. I do find myself getting to Cebu every year – there must be something to that. I’m pondering picking up a condo there and making that a base of operations…but it’s probably a bit too early for that, I still want to move on and explore other lands before making any decisions.

Friends Ken and Carmen will be here in a couple weeks – have been out scouting restaurants and activities to keep them busy. There’s so much to do and see here that I need to avoid blowing their minds…they’ll probably get here and be exhausted from work and the trip. I think for the first day or two, it’ll be beaches and massages, and after that we can get into diving, hiking, parties, etc.

Included in my recent shipment of magazines was a Sports Illustrated with a photo of the World Series champion Red Sox on the cover. Seems like forever since I sat in my Mumbai hotel room and watched the boys take out Colorado and romp to victory. I usually keep these back issues as insurance against an undetermined future stretch in which all Boston sports teams suck and I’m forced to rely on old memories to get me through the hard times. As for right now, Boston is the sports capital of America and everyone’s got a boner over the Sox, Pats, Celts, and maybe even Da Bruins…

There was supposed to be an NBA season preview issue in the shipment, one which featured the ‘New Celtics’ on the cover. But it wasn’t in there. This unfortunately isn’t a rare occurrence – in past years I’ve had key issues of Sports Illustrated ‘go missing’ right after a Boston championship. Not sure who did the pinching – postman, mail guys at Monitor, etc. A real pain…I’ve had to make arrangements with relatives and friends to get me backup copies just in case. I emailed SI and asked them to re-send this Celtics issue, and they responded affirmatively, so let’s see if it ever gets to me. An unexpected side effect of victory – an everyday copy of SI becomes gold to local fans. There’s always a flip side, methinks.

Went to Nine Bar to hear some trance last night. Quite a few people there dancing to the beat. Afterward, came back to BMU and had dinner at the bar…Lisa sat next to me and for some reason we soon started teasing Bini; I channeled Linda Blair in The Exorcist and mimicked her ‘Dimi, Dimi, please don’t hurt me Dimi’ scene (I know, a bit obscure, but classic), and Lisa did Marlon Brando in The Godfather – ‘Vinny, now that Sonny’s gone you’re head of the family.’ Teasing Bini seemed like the thing to do and he was good-natured about it. Lots of laughs at Bean Me Up these days, and it’s only going to get better…

But annoyances do intrude. Mo from Pune is back – he’s Umang’s friend who was here last year, and who succeeded in bothering me with his creepy, needy mannerisms. He came up behind me at the bar the other night and latched on – for some reason I think he’s expecting me to hang with him and keep him entertained, and I’m not interested. Forgive me for not being friendly, but I should be allowed my misanthropic leanings, particularly when the subject in question is Mo.

Lisa was in an especially perky mood last night – possibly because Bini reversed his decision to quit, and she now has him by the balls. Women do seem to like those circumstances. We went out to Primrose to play pool. Lisa has known the family that owns Primrose for years, but when we entered and she said hi, the patriarch of the family (they’re Goan) turned to an associate/friend and said something snide which she picked up on. Imagine that – they’ve known each other for years, and he’s usually pleasant, but when she, a foreign woman, greets him in public, he feels compelled to disparage her. Wow – there’s a short story in there, for sure. Not an uplifting one – it would be more around the cruelty of humans toward each other and our basic animal instincts. Not sure I want to write that one, come to think of it…

Lisa got the better of me in pool, but we ended up drawing at 2-2. She had one game won, but scratched when she sank the 8 ball. I can’t tell you how many pool games I’ve won that way – it’s deeply unsatisfying, the pool equivalent of the boxing rope-a-dope, but you do get to say you won. Anyway, we had fun and talked lots of shit before heading back to BMU.

Read in Wired Magazine about a service called WakerUpper.com. You go to this site and enter some details, and it provides a wake-up call to your mobile or landline. A virtual hotel wake-up service. Not that practical if you don’t have access to a computer beforehand, and I’m not sure it’s a real advantage over simply setting your mobile (or watch) alarm, but I will give it a try and see how well it works.

Closing thought: ill-defined, open-ended ‘social wars’ a la the ‘war on drugs’ and the ‘war on terror’ are meaningless without a real ‘war on poverty’ at the base. If we want people to stop abusing (not the same as using, please note) drugs, and we want to take the steam out of terrorist recruitment, we need to provide other avenues to fulfillment and satisfaction. Building warships and starting hot wars seems like a pretty clumsy way to get things done in the 21st century; instead, let’s hire lots of young programmers (we can train them) and keep them busy with productive work – private sector and governmental. How much does one warship cost? I’ll bet you could employ a hell of a lot of young Arab lads for the same price-tag…

Any reactions to that one? Over and out…

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 13th, 2007 at 1:31 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.