Ron Paul Country: Mongolia in California
Posted on January 14, 2008
California is, for the most part, Mongolia. Erase the coasts and the canals that suck water from the north to feed Big Asparagus and whiten the teeth of Valley Girls, it would be as desolate as the steppes of Central Asia. Driving through the high desert between Bakersfield and Las Vegas I note two landmarks: a graveyard for embalmed airliners, in permanent holding pattern at Mohave airport, and a shrine for Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. Paul is what is known as a Libertarian, a sect of American politics that wavers between admirably cranky conservatism and loco-weed lunacy: just right for the build-a-wall, save-the-republic denizens of this landscape of coyotes, cactus and bullet-riddled road signs.
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Christmas in Fiji (with podcast)
Posted on December 15, 2007
Choirs, Coups and Long Canoes
Where do you go to find a spirited Christmas celebration? Give me Fiji any day. As the temperature teases the freezing tick on the thermometer and our two cats, Max and Moritz stalk the house looking for non-existent pools of light, my mind drifts on the trade winds to Fiji sunshine. I am a great fan of Fiji. I courted my wife on a cruise of Fiji’s islands in 1997, but ten years earlier I went there to do a documentary for American Public Radio and NPR that was supposed to have been a Christmas special featuring Fiji’s magnificent a capella choirs, but ended up as a rather strange tale of island politics: two coups d’etat, me being suspected of being CIA, a strange encounter with a drunken German arms dealer, unzoweiter, unzoweiter…but that’s a long story.
The program was an hour long, but I have shortened and updated it. A major part of the 16 1/2 minutes features the music of the Fiji islands, recorded on both trips, ranging from a Fijian drinking song to familiar Christmas carols sung in Fijian. I would guess that there are few Fijians who cannot sing…magnificently. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, peace and joy during this holiday season.
Listen MP3 16:30
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On Foot in London
Posted on December 6, 2007
As a Monty Python fan, London in my minds eye is a city of silly walks: eccentric lopes, tortured tangos and Teutonic goose steps. It is really quite opposite that, in fact. That’s why the Pythons were funny. Last week in London, Pat and I settled into an apartment off Fleet Street and toured old London by foot. I admit that I now live in a place where the only crowds are formed by geese, which the local authorities are employing dogs to break up, but I do spend a fair amount of time in places like New York, Bangkok, even Delhi, so I am not a weenie when it comes to huddled and non-huddled masses. But walking in London this time around was culture shock.
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Democracy and Debauchery
Posted on December 6, 2007
Oh, we Americans are a wild and crazy bunch: toiling hard and productively, spreading democracy by day…partying hard by night. Or is it partying day and night? According to a new report on travel trends, we Yanks are binge drinking, G-string snapping “debaucherists,” longing for the eternal spring break.
This report, put out by the UK research firm Euromonitor International, says the hot trend among the British is traveling with pets. Western Europe likes Slow Travel (an analogy to Slow Food) and South America “End of the World Tourism”inspired by “March of the Penguins.” For the Middle East it is Halal or Islam-safe travel. But we North Americans are cut from a different cloth. We pine for the lifestyles of the rich and vacuous, of Britney
and Kevin and the rest for whom life is one endless DUI. I’ll admit that I share the helpless anguish of millions of Americans about the state of our Union and have entertained the notion that finding a pal in Yukon Jack until Bush lets go of the football might be less toxic than watching cable news, but is this a for-real trend or a fashionable whack at US culture drawn from the backside of The Queen?
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Hi Tack Tourism: Strolling Around Fisherman’s Wharf
Posted on December 2, 2007
“Oriental Art” Store
During a conference this weekend at San Francisco’s Fishermen’s Wharf, I took a stroll to get some fresh air and descended down the rabbit hole of tee shirt shops and tacky tourism. I have lived in or near San Francisco most of my life and never go to Fishermen’s Wharf…for good reason. Except for what amounts to a Cirque du Sealion, the loud unstaged performance of marine life at nearby Pier 39, and a few walk-away crab stalls, there is little authentic left here. A. Sabella’s , the historic seafood restaurant just closed after 85 years. But if it is authentic “Oriental Art” you seek, Fisherman’s Wharf may still be for you.
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