open letter to Dog the Bounty Hunter

In the spirit Foulweather I would like offer up this open letter to Mr. Duane Chapman, aka Dog the Bounty Hunter.

First off let’s get the obvious out of the way. The people who gave you a contract for your show are clowning you. No doubt. Everyone knows that the ugly ass futuristic Oakley’s and dirt rock ultra-mullet, combined with the mini feather boas hanging down your temples are only there to drive the clowns home. You see, the thing is that people probably like your show because: a. there’s lots of violence and b. because it makes them feel like their lives are more meaningful than yours and your captives. Don’t get me wrong Dog, I’m not knocking your profession. I’m sure that it’s a good gig and perhaps even a necessary public service. But is it entertainment? And the prayer circles holding hands before you spray someone with mace in the face? Are you asking forgiveness before your pre-meditated attack? I don’t know how that would hold up at the pearly gates but surely in court pre-meditated violent acts are a no no.

Not sure how the locals in Hawaii feel about you and I dare not speak for them. However, I get the sense that in your holier than thou cavalier attitude going around arresting cracked out offenders you rarely show the Hawaiian people in anything but a negative light. And there’s not a whole lot of Hawaiians on TV so this really must make an impact on public perception. I wonder if you’re considered haole offender number one? Don’t you see that it’s people like yourself who are to blame for many of the social problems in Hawaii? I’m not gonna go into a deep discussion on the adverse social impacts of post-colonialism on local cultures but you get the idea.

Here’s the bottom line Mr. Dog. You represent all of the shitty American character traits that the world loves to hate. You are loud and overbearing. You use your religion like a badge to abuse people (by broadcasting for all to see their lowest moments) who you feel are in the wrong and lesser than you. You are a bigot. You willingly make an ass of yourself and your family for a fucking paycheck. And you flaunt all of it. But the biggest offense is that you have your little contrived self-deprecating act going making us think that you are working hard to be empathetic and god abiding for the good of society. You and GW Bush are the same excepting fashion.

So please stop playing yourself. Do your work and do it well but don’t use your captives as a means to add to the bond money you’re collecting. And stop proselytizing already it’s embarrassing. Maybe if you spend more time surfing you’d be less of a kook eh bra.

monday ruminations: kenvin and twin keels + nature

It’s Monday and the leaves are flaming as the cold dark mornings grow longer and longer. I wished I’d worn ear protection on the bike commute today as my ears rang through the first half hour of work. Did I say work? It’s all I can do to focus on anything else besides surfing. Lately I’ve been reading about Richard Kenvin. Kenvin is not well known outside of California but his reputation is held in high regard inasmuch as I can tell. He is the man behind the film project titled Hydrodynamica – a historical look into the genius and influence of Bob Simmons. Simmons drowned while surfing at the age of 35. It’s a wonder how things may have been different if it weren’t for Simmons early demise.


(Kenvin, twin keeled in New York on the same weekend that I surfed NY sandbars [franco photo taken from the Hydrodynamica blog])

Last weekend while in New York I was lucky to get to ride a 5’11” Rich Pavel keel fish. The board had the traditional marine ply wood keel fins set parallel to the stringer with no cant or toe. I had never ridden a board that short nor with that fin set-up. The waves were overhead, steep and fast and breaking over a shallow sandbar. I was intimidated and perhaps suffering from a bit of “performance anxiety” as Mick coined it. However, after a few failed attempts I managed to make a wave or two and really feel what the design has been so famous for. Speed. The feeling of controlled speed was like nothing I’d ever felt before on any other surfboard. It’s taken a week for those few rides to settle into my consciousness. A week where I had a chance to surf my entire quiver from the bonzer in perfect eight foot faces, then the green machine modern fish in head high lefts, and finally the 9’6” log in windy knee high slop. Although all of my sessions this past week were great, none quite compared to the Pavel fish session.

So I’ve turned to researching the twin keeled, wide tailed, boards and their exponents. I have always tended to be antisocial in my lifestyle choices. Sometimes out of pure narcissism and other times out of passion and a real interest. I have never been interested in the technical aspects of board sports but rather in the fluidity and grace that is achieved by masters like Tudor and Curran, or Vallely and Gonz. But it seems that in the twin keel Simmons and Lis inspired craft I may have found what I was looking for in terms of speed, fluidity and fit.

I’m fascinated by how we as animals can use tools to move within our environment. Surfing is really as simple as it gets when it comes to being part of the energy that moves the world. We use our energy and intuition to catch waves and then glide down their faces for what is really a trifle in the timeline of our lives. And yet, for some, this trifling moment becomes a beacon towards which our lives are directed. And getting to that light at the end of the darkness is a series of cycles of wind, tide, and seasons, of paddling out and into waves, of morning rituals and checking the weather. The cyclical patterns of a lifelong surfer are not unlike those of any other organism moving through the stages of life. And to find that tool that perfectly fits with your own personal style, your movements, is to shortcut straight to the foothills of the mountain of enlightenment. In these times of turmoil and war I feel sometimes shallow for obsessing with surfing. Mostly however, I feel fortunate to be passionate about life and nature and I am grateful to be stationed in a life that allows me this simplest and most giving of pursuits.

I'll leave with Miles and Sketches

Foulweather: The Beach

I’ve been meaning to post this for a little while now. The second edition of the print zine Foulweather is out now and you should get one. The Beach, as the current volume is titled, is a collection of writing, art, and photography compiled, edited, and published by Mr. P. Lewis, author of the renowned Foulweather blog.

I was lucky enough to have my first ever essay published here. It is an account of some of my experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer in Jamaica in late 2001. One of the key attributes to the Foulweather series is that the work takes a deep look at western culture and not from a distant point or a bird’s eye view, rather from the level of the individual, questioning his actions, his lifestyle, his responsibility.

You can get Foulweather by writing directly to Mr. Lewis. You can also order it from Powell’s Books and Microcosm Publishing and the Foulweather blog.

In a time when we can type our thoughts and immediately put them out for the world to see, it is imperative that we also keep the printed word alive because although it takes paper and ink to print, it is far more sustainable in the long run that this world wide electronic web powered by coal, oil, and nuclear reactions.

I wanna be a lion

No –I want to be true. You ever have one of those days surfing when your feeling vibed by the crowd, by your style, by your board, the fins you chose, not enough wax, too much coffee, booties leakin cold water and yer toes hurt? Ever have a day surfing when things just ain’t coming together right in your mind? I have –they’ve been plentiful at times.

But then there are other days. Days when your focus is like a candle burning in your bedroom with the windows closed and no breeze -just a bright and focused light, moving but staying in place. Those are the days when you pop up and your feet land in the exact spot on your board where the heel dent gives you maximum grip. Those are the days when you paddle for a peak that no one else has seen yet, and as they notice your stroke it’s too late for them and your up, gliding down and arcing up for the high line only to drop in again with renewed speed. On those days you notice the way the seaweed sways in between the boulders on the inside. You notice how the tide has combed the beach and left its nutrient rich deposit at the high-tide line. You notice how the sun comes out from behind the trees to the east and if you hold your mitted hand just so, you can block the blinding rays enough to see the tops feathering on the incoming set.

Sometimes I wish that I could just go surfing everyday and not have to work. But then I would loose the solace and peace it gives me as I steal some time before work to surf. Waking up before first light and paddling out at sunrise is an experience that comes as close to church as anything in my life ever did. Being immersed in the chilled water and embraced by the north wind is shocking at first -ironically it brings a warm sense of relief in the end.

I don’t think about much else aside from surfing. And sometimes I’m chastised for it. Other times people tell me, “your so lucky you have something your so passionate about.” Sure I guess I’m lucky. But it is work, getting up early, making breakfast and paddling, duck diving, paddling, paddling, walking to the point over the cold as death rocks, paddling, and then you ride a wave. Sure it’s great and I’m lucky you’re right. But it’s so much more, so much more than just being lucky to be passionate. It’s satisfaction. It’s being in nature –no, being natural, using your muscles, your wit, your equilibrium, your heart. It’s being alive. You don’t have to be good at it. You just have to paddle.

Edit - I just noticed that Ku Yah! is two years old this week. Thanks for reading. Cheers and I'll be sure to have a beer in celebration tonight as I sway to the rhytims of the Bedouin Soundclash.

Foulweather is also two this month.

zen and the modern hipster

For some reason (my own ego) the hipster movement in Portland struck me like a bad hangover from my very first impression. Before moving to Portland I had a vague idea of what hipster meant –my version stemmed from extensive reading of 1950’s American literature. Perhaps what irked me the most was the arrogance with which the hipster cliques in Portland moved, pretending as if the rest of world, the people around them, didn’t even exist, or worse, were less than human.

I was born a toe headed kid in a Latin American country and have been no stranger to sticking out or not feeling like I fit in. And yet I have always been attracted to America’s sub-culture movements but mostly as a watcher, not fitting in has been my shield. But I digress –in a recent post by Foulweather we see some street level social commentary, presumably by a “hipster.” And it seems that the particular slogan has its merit. However, I cannot help but notice the rapid commodification of the hipster lifestyle and it makes me wonder how this longstanding bohemian tradition will survive this attack of blatant capitalism.

Or maybe it’s already been dead for a long time?

I guess that what I’d like to know is whether or not any real subculture still exists that has not been packaged and sold to the masses?

Here is a relevant passage by Alan Watts commenting on Zen in the Western World and it’s adoption by the beatnik hipsters.

“The "beat" mentality as I am thinking of it is something much more extensive and vague that the hipster life of New York and San Francisco. It is a younger generation's nonparticipation in "the American Way of Life," a revolt which does not seek to change the existing order but simply turns away from it to find the significance of life in subjective experience rather then objective achievement. It contrasts with the "square" and other-directed mentality of beguilement by social convention, unaware of the correlativity of right and wrong, the mutual necessity of capitalism and communism to each other's existence, of the inner identity of puritanism and lechery, or of, say, the alliance of church lobbies and organized crime to maintain the laws against gambling.”

So are the hipsters of New York, San Francisco and Portland just another marketing demographic? Does the unified fashion, music, aesthetic and even prevailing ideology mean anything more than a clean cut marketing plan? Even though I have a distaste for the hipster sub-culture, I’d like to think, or maybe even wish, that there’s “something much more extensive and vague” for the sake of preserving some shred of human decency –some little bit that cannot be bought or sold.

mahalo and goodnight

modern world

couldn't resist. found a link to this clip on Malcolm Johnson's blog and was blown away by the song. it resonates in so many ways. as i seek simplicity in my daily life i am confounded by the conundrum of living simply in a modern world. while we push and push the boundaries of the scientific and intellectual world we shrink the mysterious and mystical. i wouldn't want to go without the internet, yet i would forego the microwave. how do we proceed with sincere interest? how do we keep our integrity in a time when time is measured by our passing fancies? simply simplify. marry the modern with the archaic to make new -somehow. i wish ol chinasky was still around to tell us his view of the current.


the band is Wolf Parade. more info here

ego trip

I have a lot of respect for author Naomi Klein, particularly because she encourages us to be aware and to educate ourselves about our surroundings and our society’s inner workings. This is the antithesis of what consumer-based organizations would require from us. Their aim is for us to learn or be exposed to those things which will benefit their economic interests so that they may continue to feed the need for limitless expanding profit margins.

Over the last couple of years I’ve been exploring my own relationship with consumerism and self discipline. It is easy to anthropomorphise consumerism, and many anti-consumer groups use this tactic as a way of creating hatred and/or fear for the want of things. But if we take a step back and look more objectively I believe we can see that things have a purpose and that we can separate that purpose from our own internal desires. This is by no means an easy task. And the money and intellect that goes into advertising is perhaps greater than what it costs to produce and distribute most goods. This means that for most of us normal everyday folk it’s hard to always distinguish the truth behind marketing campaigns and objectively decide if a given thing is vital to our lives.

The question I pose to myself is not whether to have or not have things. Rather, to allow myself, my emotions and my credit, to be controlled by things. Our society is based on things and we are great at inventing them. From living spaces to tools and medicines, humans are incredibly creative. But it seems that our modern society has been shifting more and more to an obsessive acquisition of goods for the sake of acquisition instead of for the actual use of said good.

Recently I wrote a post about choices in our daily lives. Living in the developed world affords us with infinite choices, from the smallest item to where we want to live or attend university. One anonymous comment stated “that freedom is found by actually making a choice.” We must be aware of our surroundings and have enough knowledge to make educated decisions, especially when it comes to civic responsibilities such as voting. More importantly however, and perhaps a bit more difficult, we need to understand ourselves –our individual needs and desires –and be able to make rational and intentional choices about the way we lead our lives.

I often fail with some of my intended paths. As of late I’ve had little exercise and my diet has been horrible. I can feel it when I wake up in the morning. The bus has taken the place of my daily bike commute, and sure I have good excuses like: it’s below freezing and snowing. But I know that riding my bike to work has more benefits internally than not riding my bike. Self discipline and determination have always been my biggest foes and it’s funny because after all the time that it’s taken me to write these words I am at a loss as to how to proceed. So I leave you with a clip of Klein’s newest project. Ask your local library to get you her book.

Aloha and mahalo

tings

We are living inna time when choice is king. Go anywhere in North America to do any particular thing and you’ll be bombarded with choices. In a recent McDonald’s commercial we see toddlers standing at the order counter staring up at the various food combos in obvious indecision. While this may seem a like boon for some I wonder if in reality it’s more of a curse.

How does indecision affect us, our desires and our vision of how things should be? I have tried, perhaps sometimes a bit halfheartedly, to whittle my life down to a simpler existence. There are times when I do enjoy excess, particularly with food and drink –two social and satisfying pursuits which provide immediate gratification. But that’s not to say that I’m not pulled here and there by desires for other things. A new guitar or surfboard, a new bicycle, a new pair of rain pants and jacket for my bike commute, I could go on but this type of thinking is exactly what causes the problem of want and greed.

What I find most interesting, and I’ve learned this through surfing and skateboarding, is that what brings the most enjoyment is the act achieved by using these things (skateboard or surfboard) that we crave. I’ve learned that the simplest single speed bike brings the most joy out of the riding experience. Hence choice only serves to hinder the path. But there are social pressures to be fashionable, to have the latest and greatest gadget for the most minute of uses. Economics have taught us that specialization is better than being a jack of all trades. Most of us feel more comfortable with a boiled egg slicer than with a chef’s knife. What does that say for our sense of adventure, our intuition and our self reliance?

I say damn it all to hell. Do your push ups in case the end is near. Listen to the music that makes you move and groove or ball like a baby. Wear your favorite jeans day after day. If you wanna paint a painting then get out your paints and brush and do it. This is not a throwback to the sixties be here now mentality. It’s an anti-statement to the status quo of buy here now.

Buy me! Collect me! Accessorize me! Love me, worship my plastic heart! You need me. You deserve me. You’ve worked hard you should be able to spend your money on me if you want. I’ll make you happy. You’ll be the talk of the town if you wear me. The girls will want you.

Hear me ‘a seh. Everyting is everyting. Nuh watch nuh face.

Passion is life.

Things are lifeless.


photo lifted from www.jahtary.org with nuff respec

6'6" fat boy wave killa

Several occurrences have collided to give me the chance to plug a gap in my current quiver of two. I have been working on a project called Phoresia.org with my friend D$. Through this outlet I’ve had the opportunity to do my first paid writing job.

I know, I can hear you now… “how in the hell did this guy get someone to pay him for his dribbled scribble?” You got me. I don’t know either.

Anyway, being that things are as they are, I’ve decided to reinvest these “earnings” into a project, in the form of a new surfboard, for Phoresia.org. It’s sort of a Walden’esque idea of living the life –if you know what I mean. I don’t want to spoil the plot because I won’t have anything left for the project.

But I can say that my next board, currently under the planer, will be a 6’6” high performance thruster (yes I said thruster) with a single concave and squash tail. Originally I’d wanted to get a retro styled 5-fin Bonzer. After talking to my shaper he suggested that I get something in between my 6’4” fish type board and my 6’8” mini-gun – something which would be easy to transition from board to board and not have to surf differently on each one.

D$ has divulged some science that seems to make a lot of sense. You got your quiver right? You got a small wave board which is short and chubby and loose. Then you got your board for waist to overhead surf which is longer and a bit more foiled. Finally, you have a board for solid overhead waves which has a narrow outline and pin tail to hold a line. The key is to get the same volume on all the boards. This way they all feel similar as far as paddling and catching waves but their respective plan shapes allow them to work best in the right conditions. All of my boards will have a thruster set-up allowing me to get comparable reactions from each one.

Ideally I should be able to switch boards depending on wave height and not struggle with getting used to the feel of each board each time. My boards should also last a bit longer since I won’t be using the same one all the time. At this stage in my surfing I feel that I still need some fundamental skills like generating speed and turning without loosing speed. It’s important then to have boards that will work well and float me properly. Once I feel like I have my fundamentals a little more wired I can start experimenting more with alternate designs.

Arguably the most relevant element affecting your performance level in just about any activity is physical fitness. I’m working on that too. Been running and doing a lot of high repetition muscle exercises –mostly with my own body weight or free weights. I am also trying to practice yoga on my own at least once a week but that doesn’t always pan out. I’d surf more but we’ve entered a period of little swell possibilities.

Man I just realized how serious this whole post sounds. But the truth is that out all of the things I’ve done in life, surfing is probably the one that’s brought the best out of me. It has consistently been an activity which I give my all to. So although I don’t take myself seriously in the line-up and I’m not competitive (I’ll hoot anyone on a nice wave), I do want to become better at it all the time. Surfing, a lot like skateboarding, demands that you continue to progress in your skills and style, always rewarding you with the feeling of self propulsion and self reliance which we often miss in our modern daily lives.

Participatory Culture Shift - "coming to come seen"

This week I have somehow managed to read several different pieces about a new form of public participatory culture happening across the globe. The idea is basically that everyday people, like you reading this, and me typing while at work, are coming together without leadership or hidden agendas to share information, ideas, dreams and even practical information. This has been quite evident as a movement with the internet and things like blogging and Wikipedia. But it is not limited to cyberspace. One of the articles I read was in Ode Magazine and it talked about the G8 summit protests, which brought together thousands of people who were there to represent a myriad of ideologies, from environmental issues to religion, human rights and business.

There has always been a sort of strange relationship to the idea of "the man” controlling society. Some people refer to the man with a sense of dread; while others laugh at the thought that there is some hidden power out there controlling everything, or at least watching. Whether or not the “man” exists or not may soon become irrelevant because technology and communications are allowing normal people to share ideas and create community like never before.

Take this blog her for example. I started writing on Ku Yah! about a year ago. My intention was to practice my writing and have a way to get it out of my head and notebooks. What it’s really done is caused me to write. You see I’ve come realize that, having the desire to write and actually writing are two different things. In the span of a year I have certainly grown in my own sensibilities as a writer, I have come closer to understanding where my skills and strengths are and perhaps even where I may want to move with my writing in the future. But those are consequences which I set out to achieve.

What I hadn’t expected was to be absorbed into an international community with other bloggers. We link each other, read each others ideas, follow each others links to far flung cyberspace reaches and learn about new ideas. And blogging is only scratching the surface. Participatory projects like , Flickr, Wikipedia and WiserEarth are changing the way information is valued. If you ever had the Encyclopedia Britannica sales guy come to your house and make his pitch to your parents, using you as an excuse for the exorbitant amount of dough they had to lay out for this printed knowledge, then you have seen what kind of pressure this can have on a person.

What is exciting now is that knowledge which is free to the end user, and was created for free, will tend to have less of an agenda than knowledge created for profit. Maybe we will see history books 30 years from now being written based on blog archives and not by historians working for massive publishers with huge lobbying power. And maybe then history will be a bit more objective and inclusive of all people.

So as I close down the workday I feel excited about the possibilities. I feel that the future is not all Global Warming and wars. Of course the key is participation, and participation is the corner stone of democracy, and George Bush is not democracy. So I plan to get out there and conitinue reading, linking, writing, and more importantly –doing.

my responsibility?

Twenty or thirty years ago our access to world issues was limited to the papers and televised news coverage. It was easy to be unaware of major conflicts or human crisis outside of your own nation or region.

But today things are different. With the advent of the internet there is nothing too obscure. This week the Holocaust Museum and the Google Earth launched a campaign to highlight the genocide taking place in Darfur. You can actually see satellite images of destroyed villages and refugee camps. Go to the BBC News for the article.


The question of individual responsibility to humanitarian causes is a personal one. We each have our own set of ethics and values. Although many of us share similarities in these values due to our shared cultural and political backgrounds, how we react to situations is an individual choice.

I grew up in an environment where my family worked in community development. As a young adult I entered into a two year volunteer contract to do environmental health work in rural Jamaica. Since then I’ve worked in social work and community development in the States and am now involved in mental health education. These experiences have shaped my view of the world and my sense of social responsibility.

Yet I struggle to now what to do; to asses my place and responsibility in light of atrocities like the ongoing conflict in Darfur. One of the things that I try to be aware of is the sheer luck of my being borne into a place and time where social inequity does not inhibit my basic needs. I have also tried to find employment where I can be an asset to society and not focus my efforts on material profit. And still I feel that I am doing nothing.

So perhaps this is political, and perhaps the departure from my surfing adventures turns off some of my readers. But I feel it is my duty to continue to pass on this vital information about the Darfur region because we can’t ignore it. As the world becomes more connected through globalization and communications, we are all more and more intricately linked. Our actions today will have impacts tomorrow. I would like to imagine that if I was ever faced with a life where my government was trying to kill me and all of my loved ones that someone out there would do something to help.

In the links below you will find both information about the current conflicts and also ways that you can do something to help. Dialog is of utmost importance.

Darfur Perpective
http://www.ushmm.org/conscience/alert/darfur/contents/01-overview/

What can you do?
http://www.ushmm.org/conscience/alert/darfur/what/

Original Roots Man Dem

Passion. 80 million people are gathering along the Ganges to take a spiritual dip. We do not have anything in our Western society that resembles this spectacle. We are so fractured into political affiliations, religions, cultural backgrounds, race, class, and then myriad subcultures. Mix all of that with a healthy dose of individualism and you are left with a society full of depressed lonely people. Who knows why we abandoned mysticism. Who knows why we’ve learned to avoid each other’s gazes on the street or in the elevator. When we see homeless men on the street with a paper cup asking for money we often look straight ahead and pretend like they aren’t there.

The old gambling drunk Bukowski knew passion. He knew passion better than most know their asses. He lived with an eternal hangover, constantly broke, with bloodied nose from bar room brawls, and spent all his money on cigarettes, booze and the horses. Occasionally he spent money on his women too. But if he knew anything it was to recognize when someone led their lives with passion, instead of some base need to carry on, clocking in and clocking out like he did many times at jobs he detested.

He almost cried when he walked out of that restaurant in Germany, wife and publisher in tow, and saw all those German women holding placards in the cold rainy night protesting their hearts out. They were protesting against his misogynist writing his publisher said. Bukowski held his tears in silence while he admired the passion it took those women to go out of their way and in such horrible weather to give an old dying crummy writer hell for what he wrote and got paid for.

If you get a chance to see the documentary titled Naked in Ashes about Hindu holly men I highly recommend it.

goodnight

Unemployed again

After one week of work I find myself unemployed again. I have worked in social work and non-profits for the last few years. And I have never encountered anything like what happened to me this week.

On Monday I asked a staff member to help in cleaning the office because we had a big event on the previous day and the place needed a little tiding. The gentleman, who was under my direct supervision, essentially lost it and threatened to kick my ass. This went on for about 45 minutes, he got on the computer and started blasting Tupac and MnM songs at full volume, and then he finally left. I was out the door shortly after, as I was the only one there and the office is quite isolated with no one around for a couple of miles.

The next day I was off because I’d worked on Sunday. The end of a swell was still out there and I went for a surf. Later on Tuesday I got a call from the executive director saying that they needed to meet with me the next morning. Apparently the guy called my co-worker and told her that he was going to get even with me in a violent way, although he didn’t exactly use those words.

To make a long story not so long, I was forced to resign today. The agency used the excuse that they are a small non-profit agency and that they were not prepared to deal with this type of harassment. They still have not filed a police report after repeated threats and now four days have passed. They offered me no compensation and then had the balls to force me to make a decision about my employment without having dealt with the harassment issue first.

I went in today to give my resignation. I wanted to tell them how I felt, to tell them that I thought they had been unprofessional. I wrote a simple letter of resignation, which I will post below:

Dear Director,

After careful consideration I wish to regretfully offer my official resignation as Program Coordinator of the ________ program in East __________. I feel that the threat to my security and the response to these issues have led to a precarious work environment.

I would like to thank you for the opportunity to have been a part of your agency. I can see that my recent experience is only circumstantial and that it does not reflect the agency’s other initiatives. Perhaps a new person not involved with the previous incident will be able to continue in this position in a safer environment.

I wish you all the best of luck in your future endeavors.


Sincerely,

ras

I don’t feel vindicated at all. Perhaps I just need to chalk it up as a lesson learned, although I’ve yet to figure out exactly what the lesson was. So now I’m back on the job hunt all over again, although now I feel less enthusiastic than I did before this experience.

I hope I don’t see the guy around town either. He’s about 6 foot and 250 pounds. And he’s out of a job too.

managing the unknown

I’ve spent the last two days as a temp taking minutes for a meeting of cultural resource managers. Some of the discussions revolved around protecting cultural and historic resources in the face of development, sustaining collections of historic and archeological artifacts, successfully attracting educated and specialized staff, etc.

A large part of the meeting focused on creating what they called the “memorable visitor experience.” In other words, they wanted to ensure the people visiting sites walked away with a concrete experience that left them somehow changed. I must admit that I was impressed by many of the ideas and the level of sophistication in the way the group/organization tackled issues. The group consisted of about 15 people and although there were some tense moments they always kept an admirable level of respect for each other. Of course, they weren’t just ordinary folks, well I mean they were normal people, but what I mean is that these folks are at the top of their respective fields doing probably some of the most thoughtful cultural, archeological and historic resource conservation today.

What struck me was that they did not seem to take popular culture into account. I mean take blogging for example. Most blogs contain short snippets of information, often combined with hyper links to relevant material, and hardly ever go into thorough examinations of any given subjects. The only exception I can think of was the first blog I ever read, the now defunct Matt Chester blog, who now strictly writes on a typewriter in the form of a zine. Matt would go into long diatribes about physics, or eating bananas, or riding his fixed gear, all in a maniacally organized and clear prose that mesmerized each time.

Anyway, back to the cultural resource managers and pop culture… libraries are facing similar issues, as are museums and other traditional civic institutions. Our collective consciousness has no more room for tradition, or culture, or history. Our brains are becoming more and more attuned to absorbing small snippets of information for the needed job, only to let it go to make room for new information. One who does not understand the idea of cataloguing and search engines is bound to drown in our age of too much information.

So my question is what happens now? Do we simply loose our history because we no longer posses the attention span for it? Or do we do like Matt Chester, and give up our technology and revert to a simpler life in order to enjoy the process?

Can we create an artificial memorable experience? Does anyone, whose career in not at risk care?

Good night.

formative obsessions

In 1987 my family moved from Isnotu, Venezuela to Bartow, Florida -two shitty small towns really, with nothing much for me to do. My brother on the other hand, the great hunter that he is, got along well with small town boys, partly because of his slingshot prowess and partly because he was and still is a badass. We rode bikes a lot. We made launch ramps and tried to see who could clear the most bikes, laid down in rows on the backside of the ramp.

Around, 1988 I got my first skateboard. It had to be hidden at my friend Jonathan’s house. My Mom was in school I think, or didn’t quite have a decent job I can’t remember, but we kids only had the public school insurance, which prohibited skateboarding and motorbikes. It was a tough time, here I was, itching to do a real American thing and I wasn’t allowed. I did it anyway.

Jonathan’s parents let him build a quarter pipe at the end of the driveway. They had a little Bobcat so we also made a dirt jump for our BMX’s. I spent hours honing my skills at Jonathan’s. As I got older I started skating with some of the better guys in town like Mike and Charlie.

After a few years I skated without the restriction from my folks. My Dad didn’t get it, and I can’t really say that my Mom got it either. But I lived and breathed skateboards every day. I spent hours and hours perfecting my slappy grind down at the bank by my house. I could do them better than all the other guys who were perfecting their own signature tricks. I liked slappy’s ‘cause I thought they had style. I would charge the yellow painted curb with as much speed as I could, right before reaching the curb I would carve hard and slap the trucks onto the curb and grind an easy ten feet before coming off with speed leftover. I could do them frontside or backside. Frontside grinds were harder but the backside layback slappy looked the best.

Jonathan and I stopped skating together. He was a shy kid and didn’t really dig the antics of the rest of the crew. I imagine that his family probably didn’t approve of Mike and Charlie either. Both came from broken homes and basically did whatever the hell they pleased.

Those were my formative years. In those years I learned to smoke cigarettes. I learned too that I didn’t have the stomach to steal them the way my friends could. “Bam!” When I heard that I knew Benji or Ham had a pack of Camels in their pocket. We pushed each other to try bigger and scarier tricks. We built launch ramps to clear over bushes and sidewalks, we pushed them up to handrails, and walls -it didn’t matter.

Things changed, we matured, and Charlie went away. One day Dana pulled up in his Monte Carlo. He was vexed at Benji for some reason I can’t remember. Three us were sitting on the sidewalk watching Ham try kickflips. It was hot as hell, all of us soaked in sweat. Dana walked around to the trunk and popped it open. He pulled out a sawed off 12 gauge and waved it around in our faces before settling the barrel in front of Benji’s nose.

No one talked; it seemed to go on forever. Dana was pleased with himself. He put the shotgun back in the trunk and drove away. We called the cops. He got two years house arrest.

Soon after we went our separate ways. Some started doing hard drugs, others moved away. I went to school.

My brother is still a badass.

Hugo Chavez & the Bolivarian Revolution

Chavez is no different than America’s G.W. Bush. Their populist rhetoric is filled with the same types of tricks to get people frothing at the mouth and enemies scurrying for safety or arming their troops. The population that they target is virtually the same, the uneducated. The primary difference is of course the message. Where Bush preaches prosperity and “freedom” for his American People, Chavez proclaims that he will bring forth a new socialist Bolivarian revolution where the people own the nation.

According to about 90% of people I spoke to, Chavez is full of shit and quite dangerous. Allow me to clarify who these people are. I spent two months in Venezuela and traveled extensively, although I spent a majority of time in the Andes. I talked with taxi drivers, grocers, hotel staff, my family, university professors, business people, you name it. I saw some Chavistas -you couldn’t miss them when they were present. Always in groups, they would often wear the colors of the new revolution and make a lot of ruckus. We were on a ferry to Margarita Island and there was a large group of Chavez supporters (about 20) who had just graduated from one of the “misiones.” They all had the revolutionary hats and all other accouterments of the revolution. They staked off a corner of the ferry and began to cheer and toast and make a whole lot of noise. It seemed to make everyone quite uncomfortable, as Venezuelans are generally quite polite.

The interesting thing that I noticed was that when one of them got up to move around the ship without one of their colleagues, he/she walked head down; lacking the confidence boasted just a second before leaving the group.

There doesn’t seem to be any other better yardstick to measure a leaders success than community economic development. After all, one of the main responsibilities of a democratic leaded in today’s world is to ensure economic stability and a humane standard of living for it’s citizens right?

Chavez has been handing out money left and right on the international scene. He has also purchased automatic weapons, helicopters, war ships, and other weapons. He routinely takes trips around the world spreading his gospel of a new socialist revolution –trips mind you that must cost the revolution and pretty penny. He has changed almost every symbol of Venezuela’s past. Every flag, coin, bill, official stamp, you name it has to be remade with the new revolutionary symbols. It’s impossible to imagine the cost of changing every official image so that Bolivar’s horse can run the other direction.

There are other things too which he is changing that we in North America don’t hear about. For example, every town and city in Venezuela has a “Plaza Bolivar.” Each plaza is quite similar. There is always a statue of Bolivar in the center, and the rest of the common is lined with benches and walkways. There are always trees and colorful shrubs too. The plaza is the proud gathering place of every town and some of them are over a century old. Chavez has decided that the plazas must be representative of the revolucion. So, many are being demolished, only to be rebuilt in the new revolutionary style.

The frightening thing about the face-lift of official symbols and the plazas is that it is in effect eliminating the countries identity. This not only seems absurd economically but it stinks of fascism too.

So what about all the community programs he boasts about, and the Cuban doctors in the barrios you ask?

The roads are in horrible condition. I heard about a village south of Merida called Santa Cruz that had been completely wiped out by a flood last year. One of my cousins owns a small sporting goods store; one of her employees lost his life in the flood. The flood razed the town. Many were left homeless and hopeless. Months later the government had not been to the site, the roads were still demolished, and not a single home had been built to assist the people who lost everything. I remember now that the person telling me this story was getting really angry because at the moment Chavez was giving money to Bolivia for a road betterment program. He had also announced that he would help Argentina clear their overwhelming international debt. Many felt cheated and deceived.

People hardly had good things to say about the Cuban doctors. Not that they were not capable, it is widely accepted that Cuban doctors are well trained. The problem is that many Venezuelan doctors were being displaced, and many were moving away to work in other countries. This type of mass exodus also happened with many of the oil industry engineers who were displaced when Chavez took over a few years ago. Anyone who was not with the revolution was fired. In fact, many people told me the same exact story about what happened to those who signed the referendum. If they worked for the government, they were fired. All who signed the referendum were black listed and unable to find work in the public sector.

I will give one more example of the loss of democracy. Historically, academic institutions in Venezuela have remained fiercely independent. Student unions have always been extremely powerful and riots often erupt anytime that the political situation seems grave. While we were in Merida there were riots. We were on the south side of the city and the schools were in the north so we didn’t get the direct effect of it. In short, there were gunshots and Molotov cocktails and tanks.

Student elections were on the horizon. The academic board of the university is not in anyway affiliated with the government. However, the government was forcing a seat, it wanted to control the political powers of the university. The candidate Nixon who was set to win the elections as he has for the past few years was suddenly accused of a violent sexual crime. Riots ensued, and Nixon went into hiding. I read the papers every day. It made little sense to me, as I didn’t have much background about student politics. But the bottom line is that the government wanted to be in charge of the political movement, killing the universities independence and forcing the revolutions “ideals” on the students through the curriculum. It meant nothing to slander the current student body president without a witness or formal charge, and force him into hiding fearing for his life.

Some of what I have written may sound exaggerated to you. You may think that I am an anit-Chavista, that I am an “escualido” (the people who are not Chavez supporters are called the squalid people).

Because of his charisma and anti Bush stance, Chavez has won the hearts of many people across the world that feel dissatisfied and deceived by their own governments. To use a well-worn cliché - if things are too good to be true well then, they probably aren’t true. Time always uncovers all secrets. If I am wrong the world will be a better place and nothing will be lost. But I fear that I am right, and that Chavez is throwing around a lot of money that people of the nation desperately need. He is buying the world’s love and admiration with oil money (and the rumor is that oil production has never returned to the levels before the takeover so he is spending money that will be generated in the future). I have heard my friends on the West Coast proclaim him as a hero to be admired. But his own people know better, they have seen this type of corruption before and they are only hoping that something will give before things get too bad.





Please feel free to write m with any comments you may have. I am quite interested to hear what you have to say.

Halifax Tourism, Halifax Pollution

100,000,000 liters, or 26,417,205 gallons, of raw untreated sewage flow into beautiful Halifax Harbor everyday. This is called the Poo Factor. The first treatment plant ever (wow) should be finsihed by the end of the year. Don't wanna go surfing in these waters hey.

You can read more about the harbor pollution situation here.

katana sharp

Well, well, well. It’s a sunny morning inna Halifax. Today marks one week since our arrival. Fully moved in now, all that remains is the elusive meaningful job. Ah, to not have to work and be free to explore ones' self. I mean think about it, if you really wanted to transform yourself say from, your current and uninspiring existence, to a sharp katana –a well balanced, physically strong and beautiful being, what is it that you most need?

Time. I have plenty of time on my hands now. Time to reflect? No. Reflection time is finished for now. It is time for action. There are two types of people (don’t you love this cliché?), those who live and those who watch others live. I am not a watcher again.

So what’s next you might ask? I have made a daily exercise schedule based solely on calisthenics and running complete with a log of reps and sets. In six weeks I’ll compile the totals and post them to see the hard numbers.

I have been doing push ups for quite some time, but now I am incorporating more core exercises to strengthen all around. I have also been running three to four days a week since the beginning of August. It’s amazing how quickly my endurance has increased. When I first started running with Markus in Seattle it hurt, it didn’t feel good or fun. But now the pain is gone and all the pain that is left is the pushing yourself pain, which is really what you want.

Yesterday morning I went down to Point Pleasant park on the harbor. There are lots of trails and it’s a perfect place to run. But tragedy struck, I rolled my left ankle on a rock and now it looks like a golf ball is under my skin. It’s really just a minor sprain, one week off and I’ll be ready to hit the trails again. My bikes arrived yesterday so I’ll have to do some hill climbing to ensure that I don’t fall too far behind.

Gone again.

American People don´t know dissent

The other night I was visiting with three of my uncles. One is a die-ard fisherman, retired. The other two are academians. One has a PhD. in Social Sciences and how things like land redistribution affect society, and the other an art historian and university professor in Barcelona. As it usually happens, the conversation turned to politics. First there were the necessary Chavez talks. Then things turned to the U.S. Now I’m not one to be easily driven to defend the United States of America. And I think it unnecessary to tell you why, but some of the things that one of my uncles said really pissed me off.

He said that we’re a bunch of pushovers. That we had absolutely no balls as a people to stand up for ourselves in the face of corruption. He said that we were blinded be greed and cheap materialism. I interrupted and said that he was generalizing, that I felt a movement brewing of people who wanted to spend their money more wisely.

His reply was a bit like some of the conspiracy theories we’ve all heard before. Why is the Bush’s and the bin Laden´s family relationship not a big question mark for the “American People?” How come we don’t freak out about the war, no weapons of mass destruction, Guantanamo, Enron, you name it. Why aren’t we standing in the front lawn of the White House demanding to know why there were no remains of the plain that hit the Pentagon? Sure we’ve all heard these things, they are on CNN and 60 Minutes too.

I left that night feeling annoyed with my uncle, feeling that he generalized in a way that any self-respecting academian would not dare to. I went to sleep feeling slighted and disrespected.

Then I woke up the next day and thought about it again. He is fucking right! Why don’t we strike and ask hard questions and stand up and wait for the goddamned response? Why do we watch the ENRON debacle transpire as if it was another episode of Seinfeld, knowing that the sons of bitches helped to steal the elections? Why don’t we panic at the thought that our nation is completely fucking bankrupted and going full steam ahead into a deeper abyss of debt that our grandchildren won’t finish paying? Why don’t we cry when our schools absolutely suck and we have the ability to send men to the moon?

Are we so fucking cheap that all we care about is stuff?

You think I’m being dramatic? Check for yourself.

Do feel like you know what’s going on? If you do let me know.

the truth and the media

Well something has finally gone wrong. One week into it and something is definitely not right with my stomach. And B. just goes along fine, stomach of steel like super lady, nothing bothers her in the least. I guess I just wasn’t cut out for a strong digestive system.

But the truth is that things couldn’t be any better. We arrived on June first in the capital, Caracas. Out hotel sent a driver to scoop us up, customs and immigration was a cinch, and we were getting a room key a cold bottled beer before we even felt the jet lag. The next morning we rose comfortably in the AC and had breakfast in the hotel restaurant overlooking the beach. After a great scramble and more toast than anyone should eat, we flew to Merida, a city nestled in the Andes mountains at around 9000 feet.

That same night we went to watch the two final matches of a local futbol (soccer) league up the mountain from the city. I imagine that this would be something like a softball league in the states. With Dad in the field, Mom cheering from the stands, and the kids running around like freedom was never so good on a Friday night, B and I were treated to Venezuelan culture in a way that is never described in the news. People were friendly and playful, yelling funny insults at the players on the filed and making a lot of racket when someone scored. The players themselves were of varied ages, most with a bit of belly out in front as they ran for the ball. Under the bleachers were heated dominoes matches and a woman making empanadas (a fried pastry stuffed with cheese or ground beef). There as a beer tent selling Venezuela’s great Pilsner beers for less than fifty cents a bottle, so ice cold that the head was more like a slurpee than anything. We had a an amazing time, and this was only our first night here!

This week we also took a bus to the coast and spent a couple of days on the beach eating fresh fish and laying around in the sun.

I must confess that I am a bit ashamed for thinking that we were coming to a place that would be dangerous and seedy. It is the complete opposite. People are warm, happy and helpful. We’ve been told by more than one person that the problems in this country are political, rather than economic. In a discussion one night I told someone that all we see in the news are the barrios, the murders, the kidnappings, etc. They laughed. I asked what kind of news they saw about the U.S.: black men killing, robbing and raping at a rapid pace. Is this what you see when you go to work every day?

It’s great to be back in the place where I was born and raised, and great to be received with open arms. Keep checking in and drop me a line sometime.