vagacabana09

More notes from my trip, more or less as I took them.

3/17/09 Adelante!

Here in the bus, indeo country for sure. The ticket man is bald and fat, and the little street dog will most definitely be dead by next season. There may come a time to thin the herd, but if that time comes, Uruguay will be a good place to land. Food and water in plenty, and a great bonhomie vibe to ease through the dark times.

So, facts.

Pretty good man-ramblin w/old Marco on the ultima noche. We agree that there is a great wisdom and peace ahead, but we aren't there yet. That quote out there about innocence dying that we might reach the greater innocence called wisdom. We realize our own mortality, and the finite nature of our immediate world. And we know that the ultimate moment is always happening right now -- we know this intellectually but it's a long road from there to living out loud. But we think we'll get there. We think.

It was a good last day in town. Marciello came over and hung out, which led to a little black-market adventure culminating in an acid scare and the old man and the sea.

"John Andrew" (Juan Andres) on the bus, a catholic farm boy on his way to his nephew's christening. Brother can't be there; playing futbol in Romania. 23-year-old Uruguayan Republican, basically. Great conversation.

And then also the charming three-year-old w/her imaginary sparkling flying pony. And the semi-racist cabbie, and just now the astoundingly hot Canadian chica. I really can't hang w/how much sizzle a 21 year old (guessing here, but you get the point) puts out. Just plain wrong.

3/18/09 MVD Redux

I could hardly resist the street mayhem of Uruguayan St. Patrick's day. Authentic Celtic music. The Uruguayan Alex UA is some kind of local TV personality. Secret grigos, green glitter, Adios, chico (says the Uruguayan Becca Glaspy). The DJ gave me the turn-down. Some other street rambling, and then Gabriella! She wants to make love but she's complicated. I'm fine with that. Just making out is great. She likes my beard and calls me Joseph. She's supersexy. Fuck Beunos Aires, I've got a hot date tomorrow in MVD.

Anyway, I also have a horrid hangover because the beer here comes in litres and I've been partying for days and it's my heritage to blow it up big time for that old snake charmer of Eire. Miestro snake indeed.

Slowly coming back to human here at the old cafe. I've got do to a little shopping. Candles and flowers. Maybe also a flag or a SuperBruno-style red and black Keffiyeh. Must be in my finest form tonight.

Getting there. Two espresso, two bananas, two liters of agua con gas Managed to figure out the phone number. Yo soy conquistadore! Now waiting for the internets to free up with this little blond gentleman. Magic mate time at the hostel. Everyone likes to Skype.

Had a bad couple of moments feeling like a mega-tourista there, fucked up my bananna order at the Ta-Ta (forgot to get them weighed and priced in the produce section), and was feeling like maybe last night's public hallway makeout was a little to janky for the cool kids behind the desk. Calmer now, total control.

3/19/09 Exodus

Burquebus direct to BA. 500ml orange/carrot juice, 1L agua con gas, now a double espresso in the terminal.

Date w/Gabriella was fun. More real than I'd really considered. We go out for surprisingly tasty vegetarian tacos, and a beer at a deserted spot. The cool kids smoke joints on the street, which isn't technically legal, but will likely be after the next election. We talk about what we want to do with the world, and what we have faith in; the kind of conversation you'd never have in a million years if you weren't forced to be innocent and completely honest because of a language barrier and a plane to catch tomorrow. It's amazing how much can be communicated if you stop being clever.

She plays the accordion and has some witchy ways, hamster power, Tiempo al tiempo, etc. Sleepless cucharear is quite nice. She has no idea what the kids dressed in boxes or the rising-sun grafitti portends (Uruguay, you remain mysterious), but the uniforms for little schoolkids (little scientists) are called "Tunicas."

I was pretty close to going native there, somewhere in between the permanent Burning Man of Punto del Diablo and the 2nd-world urban paradise of Montevideo; Indeo at the chess table, dreams of buying a crumbler in the old city, etc.

I felt maybe the edges of that greater innocence called wisdom, surrounded by things I could only slightly comprehend. It frees the mind, not constantly processing the information that bombards every second of modern waking life.

Ads on Burquebus TV are weird though: Peques is some CGI cartoon about little gnome people which re-enacts early human history, but seems to gloss over the realities of conquistadores. And then ads for an Argentine turboprop airplane (like, for the plane itself), followed by straight-up propaganda about roads. Then fire-dancing from Cirque de Soliel. Counterculture is international. All the kids in Diablo know about Kerouac and HST. Gabi w/her Pranic healing. It's all happening.

In BA now, a weary rambler stuck in the fancy part of town. Watching art through the windows and wondering if this restaurant really has empinadas or not. Oh, they were just on the next page. Looks like we are all good in this hood.

Aya, I really don't want to go back, but as the lady says you have to decide what you want, go get it, and still be present, which is a hell of a balancing act, really. Part of the "hang on tightly/let go lightly" hit parade.

So what does that really mean in practice? Well we know it means a functioning regime of physical activity, as well as a refactoring of the work/life balance. Overall goal? More international travel, possibly working it in w/the rebirth of the revolution and/or some kind of Drupal sabbatical. Turismo isn't what I'm after, more something on the whole "______ Without Borders" concept -- international solidarity and relationship-building.

Fuck. I'm totally Beat. Time to bail for the aeropuerto.

Back inside the system, surrounded by jankeys and the most miami-style of Argentines. Just how big of a perfume section does an airport need? Oh well, just give them the magic numbers and move on.

From here it's very hard to see what way the revolution wants to spin. "Do you think the end of the world is coming?" is a legitimate question for our generation, and if you don't have an answer then the truth is that you probably ride along on a subconscious assumption. Maybe that such a thing is impossible (e.g. "the trouble with these people is that their cities have never been bombed") and this permits/drives all sorts of really abhorrent behavior. Or the subconscious assumption that this is inevitable, and so nothing really matters, which ends with the same result.

And so I return to the question from before: what is the "more" which the "have a little's" want, and how can that be harnessed as a force for global development and social change?

Maybe freedom from fear. The capricious flows of the market. The fear that someone is going to jack up your shit or fly planes into your buildings. I think though that this freedom can only be recognized when when expressed successfully in a positive way. A thing which is gained, not something avoided. It is the fraternity part of the French revolutionary slogan. Human brotherhood. People without borders.

3/20/09 Miami Style

Back in Ugly America, I feel momentarily comfortable with the Cuban ladies at the little cafe airport spot getting my cafe con leche, but overall the place gives me The Fear.

What do I see... I see a lot of people looking stressed out. I see a lot of girls who are dressed to be sexy, but very few who seem to believe this about themselves. I see propaganda on television. The Central News Network.

In Nola. "All jacked up on Mountain dew." Three cups coffee, many waters, lemonade, pulled pork, adderall. I'm ready to dance again. Bourbon St. is tough for Ugly America. Nobody wants to catch my eye. Maybe because the scruff and suit combo send the wrong message. Maybe because I'm not a teenager. Hard to say. I find myself missing Gabi in that schoolgirl crush kind of way.

The dark reality of America is that your future Quebequois science-teaching wife is already married. To a 40-year-old.

Mike and Leigh have a beautiful wedding. Stations. A giant cocktail party. This is the way to do it.

Later at Circle Bar, the balding guy in publishing from NYC, living a rock-and-roll fantasy and his blondie Memphis pick-up (I can relate) from Portland. The guy with the amazing pants. Spindrift. Don't forget that dark-eyed bartender on Frenchman. She knew how to irish that coffee up. Don't forget the kid drinking pepto and redbull and his rockerqueen princess.

3/23/09 Getting Back Into The Game

Sent a lot of Blackberry mail in Big D. Starting to feel the juice a bit, that sweet sweet workahol easing the pain.

Things to note: the ads in the American Airlines magazine are primarily for Brazilian skewer meat, high-end dating services, seminars on negotiation, and fitness scams ("the 69-year-old doctor with the body of a 30-year-old!" or "the 4-minute exercise miracle!"). Also ads for Barbados, a tax-shelter with an educated and docile native population, apparently. It's a dark peek into the psyche of the old-school business-traveler.

So, hitting the reset button. Taking full advantage means establishing new habits of action.

Top of this list would be mom's idea of morning workouts. This implies earlier bedtimes, so we could just as well roll it into a whole/wholesome "early to bed and no TV" kind of deal, like that old beer hippy at the Horses Head would say.

The point here is that the time is now to start working on the 30th birthday structure. Arbitrary milestones are arbitrary, but still something to rally around. Physical fitness and steps designed to promote creative output. It's a matter of habit, like making it all about Saturday (or even Friday) afternoons. Patterns. Structure.

Another -- no beef, or only grassfed local, and starting to bring lunch a few times a week. Budgeting, etc. Planning the Country Soul and the trip to NYC.

The final piece is some kind of plan or regimen for social activity, getting out and about in the HC. Have to give it a shot.

Boarding LAX and hating the idea of the BART ride and everything else. Close to zero on the fuel meter. And now in the catch-as-catch-can manner of this little mini-journal, a quick cast of characters from Uruguay:

Bruno: Super Bruno, the boss of the beach bar (Charingo?) with two girlfriends we know about.

Maria Eugenia: Everyone's favorite.

La Blanca: her Argentine rival.

Fernando: the (in my opinion) Uruguayan Paul Rodont. Cocolo!, but also has a chill mellow side.

Camilo: the operator of the outdoor part of el Pico. Nice Guy.

Roger: New media impressario and fry cook extraordinaire.

Dani: his friend who teaches engles and is all over the web.

El Pirato Loco: Roger's dad, perhaps the Tiger Dave of Uruguay.

Mattias: Beach bar fry cook w/one dreadlock.

Matte: Hipster hat black-market connector.

Chamilla: Caretaker of the Puerto del Diablo cabanas.

Marciello: her husband, a drummer and also a major buddy.

Hector: Artisan cheese and sausage man. Rock connoisseur.

Jan and Bram: Drunken gay Norweigens involved in self-help publishing.

Andrea: La Flaca.

Danilo: Proprietor of the Hotel Splendido.

Gabriella: My Uruguayan date.

Indio: Chess playing regular outside my preferred cyber in MVD.

Juan Andres: Catholic farmboy and honest Republican.

And there are the folks who are nameless for me: those two American kids who gave off a military Hunter S. Thompson vibe at the bbq; the other Paul Rodont of Uruguay with the coca ration; the Canadian girl from the hostel and her boyfriend; the racist "dad" of Bruno; the "chicas" from the celtic music show; the "chica bonita" from El Diablo Tranquilo and her gringo employers; Ross(?) the rasta; the Old Man and the Sea, former mayor of Punto del Diablo; the Australian mom who gave me the perfect adjectives "very nomadic, very bohemian" and her kid with the flying pony.

And a cast of thousands.

Well, that about wraps it up for the offline blog transcript.

¡Adelante! means, "It advanced." Mark it down, dude.

More notes more or less direct from my travel journal. The rawest of reporting I can muster.

Diablo Tranquilo 3/13/09

Midnight mate powered us over to the nightclub -- blue neon "Balentines" sign a bit of a shoreline landmark -- which turns out to be gringo operated, and the happening place to be on a thirsday night. Fernando (who I called the Paul Rodont of Uruguay) is there, playing sound effect gags as if he were opening the liter Heinekins with his eye socket or shooting bottle rockets into the sky.

We get a little Rosa Floyd from live musicians, plus some Santana and later Beatles. Norwegian girl across the way is alluring, but I don't have anything more than eyes in me. We chat with Roger, and intellectual and internet radio host, and among other things he demonstrates the most effective roach-clip ever: essentially an on-the-fly cigarette holder constructed from the foil in a gum wrapper or other packaging. Improvisational genius.

We experience the first signs of tension around our adopted street dog, relative levels of devotion to the beach bar (which is in the process of being reclaimed by the sea somewhat sooner than everyone expected) and associated clique. Walking back that way on our ramble home some of the crew are packing up, taking final photos as the main platform leans dangerously off the sand-cliff, tottering above the breakers which are steadily eating away.

I wake up to wind from the South (which is where the cold comes from down here) and fits of rain. Having landed completely, decompression complete, I wonder at my purpose. The vacation boredom has arrived, and I wand to know what lies beyond. So, I visited the Cyber (blog post) and everything seemed fine. Lots of comment spam on the old blog, but otherwise the outside world seems good.

Getting back to the matter at hand, this problem, I think, is one of expectations, both and and for the old self. I have a desire to be truly excellent, successful and well-liked, but for and why and what and whom is a wide open question. I lack an answer and more often than not find myself fending off other people's desires, as I'm no longer content substituting them for my own. This creates stress for me, trying to be nice. It would be a lot better if I could judo flip the other energy, but that still requires at least some kind of goal of my own.

Family BBQ Day 3/15/09

Record of recent events: Friday night fish-fry crawl ending w/partytime at El Pico. Drunk incomprehensible dancing, and neither the dark-haired British cicka -- that ultrahot white dress red lips black eyes feature-set -- or the little bonitas really wanted much to do with me. All I'm up for is a little standing and hugging anyway.

We keep the party rolling on Saturday, the day of days, and truly it is Sabado Higante.

Hot sun, no wind, gorgeous waves, found beach chairs. Body surfing and joking around and making a little peace w/Gaucho. It had looked bad there for a second, sitting out at the done-in beach-bar under a foggy sky, but everything is beautiful in this kind of sunlight. Kids are swimming in their jeans. It's all good.

So then a little ramble down to the Diablo Tranquilo for a fry plate, storm coming but we want to stay out until the ultimate moment, and skate on the rain until till the Artisan cheese and sausage stall, where Hector (the proprietor) plays the blues on his stereo and lets you BYOB. He switches to Zeppelin (Immigrant Song) just as the storm breaks and we find the ideal red wind and make friends w/some gay Norweigens during the downpour.

Crazy horizontal lightning more then 60 times a minute as Papa Levy rolls up in his rental car, arriving from Estados Unidos for his own Uruguayan adventure. He's a force of nature, propelling us back home for a short nap and mate rally. I almost don't make it, sort of tripping out on my ceiling and feeling like every sip is fire in my throat, but come midnight I'm up with him and Marko. The Pico is mostly dead (rain's over, but cold and strong winds from the south), just some c-crowd kids, ugly dudes, and eventually some of our local clique who like to drink with us (especially if we're buying). We close the bar out anyhow, because why not -- Tiger Dave in full tie-dye outfit effect -- and make it home around 4:30, which pretty much brings us up to this morning, which is cold and dead-feeling to me. Partied-out.

I'm dreaming Spanish though. LGD trying to get me to go with him to "the financial capital of Brazil" and some other business with a conference.

Sunday night has the best skies yet, and after my walkabout and some truly excellent shrimp pasta and a magic-hour mate stroll, I feel pretty great again.

Various bail-out fantasies abound. I coule really dig doing this for a month or two at a time, maybe in my own special little cabana w/wifi on Wednesdays.

Fantasies of love, of having someone great to double-date all my couple friends with. Some peers.

So closing in on my 30th cycle around the sun, it's time to get down to business in terms of life. Time to be really healthy, happy, successful and free. That means more reading and writing and working out, and less drinking scotch and watching TV alone. Partytime is out there in the world. Jazz music and red wine and candles and art openings and looking really suave in public. The christ years should kick off in style.

It's the rebirth of the cool, in the old true way, all about letting the real honest stuff flow free and clear without getting terribly hot or bothered. Kerouac and Co. were rocking their weird-beard scene well before it was fashionable to grow long hair or be into anything not approved and recommended by The Man.

There's always been something of a DIY underground out there if you wanted it. Commercialization of the revolution notwithstanding, comrades exist for all kinds of cadre configurations. The trick is to be focused enough to blow past the hucksters, the bums, and all the wet-blankets. And also keeping clear of snobs and snobbery yourself, because a big part of being cool is being able to listen, to find out new things and discover new people.

So yeah, time to get hot and heady and a lot more free. Viva Libre. Viva Liberdad. Locals rule.

Domingo Carneas

There are only ever four girls at the party, which includes both of Bruno's -- something which is somewhat un-subtily celebrated, but you know, it's something for a father to be proud of -- and glad we all were to see that Maria Eugenia, our favored india princesa won out over little debbie-downer la blanca. Clearly the superior choice, as Bruno's shining eyes attest.

I'll just keep on gamblin, lots of booze and lots of rambling, buy it's better than just waiting around to die.

And you cannot beat coca-rations and dawn-swimming as a nightcap. Truly epic.

Last note prior to OJ and nescafe is that the smart ones detect and resist the implicit colonialism in my/our enthusiasm for Uruguay. We say it has a lot of potential. They pointed reply that they agree: it has a lot of potential for them.

And that my last dream was being handed a wad of dirty small-bill change by the waiter at some restaurant while being led off by a girl with a secret and lips like sugar candy.

Yo Soy Miestro Snake

The bus-ride from MVD to Punto Del Diablo is about five hours. We start out at 6pm after a busy/tense little run through the bus depot at tres cruces. The Uruguian bus system is awesome. It shows the way for a different transit paradigm in the US.

See, their rail infrastructure (relic of British Empire) is mostly disused, but there are decent roads to most places you want to go, just like here in the states. Except in Uruguay, everyone rides the bus, which runs on time, isn’t very expensive, and smells ok. There are even various levels of luxury (e.g. Routes del Sol vs Cot, the first-class line) and lots of choices for where you want to go on any given day. You can even pick up a bus running between cities just by standing on the right section of highway. Good stuff.

The trip is mostly in the dark, running through bands of rain, so I miss a lot of the countryside. We eat some simple sandwiches from groceries bought at the station (yes, there’s a grocery in the bus station). I write. We chat a bit, and I manage to set a new high score on the snake cellphone game on my second try. That’s what you get for growing up on video games.

When we finally arrive, it all happens very fast. Unbeknownst to me, Marko’s asked some teenagers to wake him up when we get to our stop, so when the time comes these kids would prefer me wake my friend, and are telling me I should get off, which I disagree with. Confusion, but we awake and get off with some of them.

We’re on the side of the highway, nothing around. About 50 yards away there’s an old-school VW bus idling, which Zya takes off for at a run. This is our ride for the last few kilometers into town and we don’t want to miss it. Pile in and some intermittent spanish chatter with the four teenage boys we’re riding with. The driver an old hippy guy who I dub “the professor.” He turns the headlights off and on at random. Speaks animatedly.

I’m not understanding much, disoriented, but we get to the pueblo centro and there’s a pizza place open, so we get an olive pizza and a Patricia, settle the nerves, then head over to home, branching off the asphalt of the main road we came in on, and onto the gravel (and sometimes sand) streets of Punto del Diablo. It’s a short walk to the little cabania, where I’ve got a space already set up and it all works out.

Travel notes resume below. I’m just transcribing for the most part. Putting together a coherent narrative may come later, but this gives some of the raw texture of the experience, interwoven with the self-conscious navel-gazing you’ve all come to expect, so I figure it’s a win to post.

3/11/09 Cabana
Windy and gray on first morning in Punto del Diablo — cozy little two story cabana, part of a three unit complex w/two more bungalows on either end. Rickety salvage-wood deck lording over it all. No building codes here.

Decompression has begun. Stretching in the morning, nescafe w/cream, paid for four nights in advance w/one of my hundred-dollar bills to the caretaker Chamilla, breakfast fritatta, dishes, shower, and a little light english reading (fluff novel from airport).

There are many beautiful women around these parts, but in spite of my co-workers wishes I don’t see myself becoming entangled in that way. The language barrier creates an exotic allure, but as a practical matter it also shuts down conversation (aka the route to all other things).

And in any event, sex still feels strange, foreign and confusing as a concept. My state-dependent learning in NYC leaves me with this big-city lothario persona in my mental closet, but that suit only comes out when I’m back on that scene, or for special occasions.

Still, I feel a kind of progress here of late, somewhere in the joy of getting out into the world and being reminded that I’m an eligible bachelor in the prime of my life. In very real, non-trivial ways my identity needs freshening. On the Ericsonian “Intimacy vs Isolation” front I’ve been at best holding a sort of static line, gradually letting folks become more distant as I hole up in the mountains.

The rebirth. The chrysalis. I am one who is.

So I hang low and try to loosen up, let my body and my mind unwind. Start thinking and breathing and being the revolution again. Embrace success and (I knew there was an old saw in there) believe in the divinity of your forward momentum once more.

3/12/09 New Thought

Have I put myself into a little comfort box? Simple little adventure to a semi-obscure country to meet up with some old friends and likely no one else, have great food, drink, smoke some local ditch weed and play dominos?

Kind of old-school, really.

So, what do I want to do with my vacation? Well, to be honest I want to find me a little wife, by which I mean meet someone to fall in love with, or more realistically to reset whatever internal parameters need kicking to make all that possible again.

The problem is that both this and the “same-old-same-old” issue are dependent on prerequisites of presence and prescience, that even thinking about them directly more of less obliviates any hope for a solution.

The best was can do is mull the problems over, plumb the depths of our hearts, make our most honest of internal assessments, and forget about the whole damn thing and go dancing or the like. All we can do is be the best people we know how to be, and simultaneously try and make ourselves happy, and hopefully there’s enough consciousness, morality and good karma in the mix to have it all work out. Nobody ever really knows for sure anyway, so really it’s all an issue of analysis/paralysis. My heart is for moving forward.

Sunny Day

Took a solo walkabout late last night (first night in town after arrival) and that was good. I really can’t interact with anyone on my own here beyond banal rote commerce, so I wasn’t looking for the party, but it was calm and moonlit and I explored a bit of beach, then did a circuit similar to what we walked in the storm yesterday after the cab ride to the hostel with the girls who moved out because they didn’t know how to haggle. Anyway, no great revelations, but good to validate my independence in the pueblo.

I slept a bit fitful, waking very early to see what looked like the beginnings of a clear sunrise, but then waking again to marine shelf overhang grey, and then again to partly-cloudy glory. Nescafe, hammock, polenta, mate and then the beach.

Coked-up Argentenians over there w/calisthenics and cocktail circus practice. The water is great and strong — big washing machine waves and a wicked southbound riptide. Underwear swimming and bottom-slam sea strawberry on my hip.

We see a girl M & Z know, and who I saw at the grocery yesterday. Def. one of the babes of Uruguay w/curly hair and Brazilian booty. She’s with her mom (visiting), picks up trash at the beach. Very real.

We wander over to the beach bar. Bro bartender, fry cook and the Uruguayan Paul Rodont, plus another couple babes with babies hanging around. Best fried fish ever as we trade off Pilsen for mate and watch various daredevels surfing both the sand-dunes (on a modified snowboard) and the killer break off deadly rocks.

Glorious sunshine peace gives me legitimate bum-life fantasies. I mean, in this context it seems like a great achievement, to be a member of the “in” crowd around a beach bar which (encroaching tides) won’t last past April. “Verano Interminabe”

And then into town, the Cyber (itself an interesting scene: WoW, facebook, IM, VoIP and infrastructure like I remember from the Park Hill Projects back on Staten Island), grocery, full case of liter beer, meats, the little Gaucho our adopted street dog, etc. Now siesta time before we roll out to party at midnight. Sweet.

At long last, notes from my trip to South America.

3/8/09 The Great Escape
Passport scanned and security passed — metro mix-up rebounded w/cab score; Islam on the radio, honk-honk-honk at the girlblonde in VW Golf taking a slow approach to a fast merge. I am all but flying.

Body is sore from conference uptempo over the past five days. Animated action and nightly partytime reminding me I’m up against the three-oh and have lost a bit of bounce. It’s not just gutfat and buttsag, you know. The blood and organs feel their age as well.

An enlivening experience. Opening. Got a chance to kick it with my old colleague Mr. Moger for a bit — he’s tapped into the Beautiful People scene in government; it exists, I tell you: smart girls in paddington bear coats working for homeland security and the whole bit — as well as dear Howard Park, who gave me a lot of info and advice for Argentina.

It’s a funny thing. I’ve been un-attracted in general of late, and I find myself resenting the pressure to be someone or something, to sizzle, saddle up the savior faire and lead some freaky charge. Like that bit in Cool Hand Luke where he gets upset at the other inmates for living through hi,.

Seems like a symptom of depression, feeling put-upon like this. Means I don’t actually see myself in these ways: wild, fun, sexy, free. From whence came this beat-down creature of routine?

The first love is self love and without the zing and pop for my own enthusiasm for me, it turns out to be a bit much to maintain, the facade. Nobody likes living a lie.

So the stage is set, yet again, for re-invention, timed to coincide with an escape from the usual routines. And reading of old dead David Foster Wallace and the Icelandic Banking Crisis, and thinking of the slow revolution we live in, the turning of another cycle in The Great Transformation, I feel for a minute like a pretty special little guy.

But seriously, our old models are dead, and the reason I’m alone is because I haven’t loved myself enough to accept the same from anyone else, which is why confident happy people annoy me, and why in my history I get crazy lucky before reeling in a big fish. The unconsciously confident great dane of a man, scarfing up the world as his due.

And in this spirit will I find my bride of the revolution, because unless/untill I believe I can change the world (again), I’ve got a zero percent chance of attracting a mate with similar interest. How my workaday life fits in is an unknown, but in the buzzing afterglow of Drupalcon it feels like an imminently solvable problem.

3/9/09 Morning in S. America
Floating now over unknown country, an organic and gridless expanse of mottled green, brown and blue, drinking in the turgid riches of another hemisphere along with my semi-bland airline coffee.

Ambiensleep was a win. Big challenge of the day is to locate the Berquebus catamaran to Montevideo. Next up is customs, and the we find out just how degraded my spanish has become.

—-

BA like beautiful, sweaty, pre-boom New York City. Shared a cab into the city center w/a pretty pediatrician who was on my flight from DC. Mealy-mouthed self-conscious hush spanish at the sandwich place. Just enough to communicate. Mission is sunglasses.

Mission accomplished.

Passed through park with a great ancient tree which would have been killer for climbing in its prime. Now long limbs span over the parks stone walkway, propped up and braced at various strategic points. A living monument, in it for the long haul.

Passed a street protest, red banners and a giant Che, stalled along a narrow street where giant steel police barracades and riot cops blocked the way. Folks up front are ready for action — clubs, facemasks, a weary air of resignation — and warned me off taking photos of the cops.

Socialism is a real thing here, and people talk openly and seriously about class struggle. I’m more and more convinced that my revolution is different. Organizing Alynski’s “Have a little, want more” types. You revolutionize what you know.

The problem is that the putative “have a little want mores” are pretty comfortable back in the states. The infinity of consume lust notwithstanding, it’s unclear what they might actually want more of.

One path to address this is traditionally through vanguard-building, or through a long march to institutional control. That is, a motivated revolutionary elite gradually (or quickly, in the event of a coup) assumes control of existing levers of power, putting them (we hope) to better use.

This is both open to egregious watering-down, and prone to all the blind spots and pitfalls of elite organizational tactics. Just look at team Obama, opaque and cautious, tinkering with the existing machine as if all we need is to change the oil. Open source revolution this is not.

What might it mean when the servers liberate the champaigne from first class? Is it a blow for freedom, or just another greedy little score? Well dude, we just don’t know.

The “wanting more” must transcend the material plane, or at least the monetary. The Cuban revolution was possible in part because they really did bring health and literacy to the people, even in the midst of the struggle. No small feat. Our own American Revolution succeeded not because people wanted to stop paying taxes, but because the taxes they paid (plus everything else the crown demanded) were stifling real innovation and self-improvement.

The best revolutions focus on this kind of uplifting and liberation action, not on the destruction or overtaking of an existing order. The best revolutions are in a core and moral sense democratic — they widen the circle.

The US and most other “developed” places are set at most (and hopefully) for incremental progress and development, caring better for their people, creating and learning more, helping to solve big systemic problems like climate change, etc.

The emerging new global players (heavyweights like China and India, but also Brazil and a whole host of others) are on a faster track, and also unripe for fist-in-the-air revolution of the old type. Criminal cartels and indigenous liberation movements may challenge for local control, and unrest will continue, but a big takeover of collapse feels unlikely.

In the remaining pejoratively-termed “third world,” places getting mined and logged and not much else, who knows. The authorities are strong where there’s money to be made, and elsewhere the sheer poverty and wrechedness of life is a tragic damper on any sort of progress. Hard to have much of a revolution when your road is an open sewer.

So then maybe the hot spot is in the in-betweens, in the way we work as co-captains of Spaceship Earth, beyond our respective national boundaries. With ubiquitous global communication (including and implying commerce), we don’t have to rely on heads of state and elite gatherings in Davos to conduct diplomatic relations. Perhaps the big “want more” has something to do with being global, being free in that new way. Bears thinking, at least.

3/10/09 Montevideo
Disaster strikes, or rather adventure. No Marko at the dock, quite likely because of daylight savings, or because they don’t let people walk in, only out. In the city center now securing food, shelter, etc. Friendly guy at the internet cafe. Hippies. Looks like I’ll make it.

Great success! We meet at Independence Plaza. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

In the morning, meatloaf for brakfast and quick tutorial in local language:

• Todo bien: literally “all good,” but used a lot particularly in Uruguay
• ta-ta-ta: the equivalent of “uh-huh” or “sure”
• ¡Barbéro!: “barbarian”, meaning pretty fucking cool
• Ayeva: that’s how it is

• Muy importante: “very important”, but seemingly said a lot w/local flavor

It’s a shopping/mate day. We walk the heart of the city, saying goodby to Hotel Splendido and its many beauties — Hostel Barbie and the heartbreakingly lovely and gracious proprietess. The streets are alive and bustling.

Antique table trade in the plaza constitucíon, relics of the last regime. Stately old men smoking pipes. The many babes of Montevideo. We search unsuccessfully for mosquito netting, but Zya finds some summer clothes at the hypermart — 30 small clothing shops/stalls crammed inside a larger commercial building, like that parking lot on Lower Broadway.

Callemocho clinic at the sidewalk cafe where the waiter is the Hileme of Uruguay, and made a special trip to the store to get us some ketchup. A great hung-over mate day in the city.

Last night’s events were celebratory scotch in the “presidential suite,” awkward anti-oogling of Hostel Barbie, steak and wine dinner, room beers, hop on over to the Casino Raddison where we win about 600 pesos at roulette and a video slot called “Turkey Shoot” what mixed funk music with cracker sland, then out to the sidewalk cafe to blow the winnings on a shot of Johnny Walker Blue, followed by beer and a giant meat plate, then more beer (supercheap) across the street, with discussions of how we might have to heavy in on some pathetic Napoleonic machismo — we’re the world police, and were with the gays, bitches.

Morning came with a loud rumble and sticky parch, but we found our way to soufflet, espresso and meatloaf breakfast (muy importante). That closes the loop on the past 24 hours.

Currently on the bus to Punto del Diablo, observing the front of Uruguayan commerce flow by: lots of piles of firewood, cellphone stores, chineese cars, election posters, martial arts studios, bicyclists, pre-fab pools, solar power/water-heating. It’s an interesting mix. Dirt roads off the side, and the omnipresent litter, but still very modern in feeling.

—

(And now the coffeshop is closing. More notes later.)

Pretty great Sunday in the Big Easy. Went to the Zoo, and then an authentic poboy joint, and eventually a random small-room rock show at the Circle bar.

I’m starting to slip back into normality, and the process of recompression is a little bit bumpy. Wrong-number phonecall at 6:45am woke me up and I had a big stress moment, thinking it meant something went horribly wrong at work. Recompression. Baby’s got the bends.

Still, it’s a good intermediary chamber between my waking life and the pan-American paradise of my vacation, New Orleans. It’s warm and still somewhat culturally foreign. It’s friendly. It’s got 24-hour bloody marys.

The immersion experience in Uruguay was really positive. It activates different parts of your brain, having to figure everything out all the time. Clears out some cobwebs for sure. I want to actually work on my espanol now. Seems muy importante to start getting global.

Returning, I found myself having a hard time speaking normally, or even understanding people. CNN in the Miami airport gave me The Fear. I found the latent, omnipresent wealth to be disorienting; the size of my hotel room, the casually conspicuous consumption that typifies a large swath of US culture, etc.

Our financial system can completely collapse and we’ll still be largely fine. Not gonna run out of food, and thanks to the bubble there are plenty of places to sleep. In fact it might not even be such a bad thing, getting back to first principles.

Much more to write and think and do. I have 544 emails waiting for me, which I will need to start in on sooner or later. But I want to write more travelogue too, and do some other things for myself before crossing the threshold of doing things for work.

It was a successful strategy, leaving my laptop and razor at home. I’m scruffy and well-adjusted. The next step is seeing what new habits of action can be laid down. This vacation wasn’t quite “how Koenig got his groove back,” but it’s in the right ballpark. Definitely a solid hit on the old reset button. I want to make the most of that.

Quick notes:

• I’ve filled about a half moleskin w/scrawlings, so I will write more substantively at a later date.
• In NOLA now for boda muy festiva
• Tan rested and ready? Not so much rested, but starting to feel the other two.

• Comment spam strikes when I’m on vacation? Cocksuckers!

I spent basically all my time in Uruguay. I was headed for Buenos Aires, but then they were having a very big St. Patricks day party (strange but true) at the place downstairs from my hostel in Montevideo. By and by I got my ancestral charm working (green sparkles, etc) and met a chicita hermosa who I had the opportunity to go out on a date with the next day. MVD date > BA wandering, but don’t cry for me, Argentina. I’ll come again soon.

Have a few pictures, which will get posted, but camera responsibility really takes me out of the moment, so I didn’t get a lot of snaps.

Time to put on a suit and tie, hang out in a church, celebrate a beautiful union. I’ve got tomorrow in the big easy and Monday as a travel day, so I’ll write more on the plane if not sooner.

Away! Away! I made it away, under the southern cross, to the beginning of autumn in steaming beatiful Uruguay. Succeeded in sleepíng on most of the long flight from JFK to Buenos Aires, a gorgeous sweaty city that in my few hours walk around the center reminds me of Manhattan before they succeeded in pushing out all the working class people. I’ll be back there for a couple days before I exit for sure. Have an urge to listen to jazz and sip a glass of wine.

But on my way in all was transit. Split a cab from the distant international aeropuerto into downtown with a plane buddy who was on the same trip at me all the way from DC, and that gave me a little time for a walkabout — sunglasses to buy, protests to witness, etc etc etc — before catching the fast boat to Montivideo, where thanks to daylight savings time I missed my connection with Marko. First moment of real adventure.

There’s a second where I worry. My hombre isn’t there, may or may not be coming, and my ATM card is rejected (which happens about 50% of the time here), so I have no local currency or idea where to go. But then I realize how warm it is, that I could no doubt curl up in a secret grassy spot and not die or probably even be robbed; in otherwords I dropped through the membrane of convenience traveling — the tourista mindset that you can slip into when your plane, taxi and boat are all clean, easy and depart/arrive on time — and into the reality of being on the ground. A good feeling.

So I chat up an American doctor and his wife, very friendly people from Philly meeting a colleague who’s local, and try a call from his blackberry to Marko’s Argentinean mobile number (which, unbeknownst to me is disconnected). My phone wasn’t prepped for world service, which was halfway a choice towards isolation and halfway just another thing that didn’t get done in the time I had before leaving.

The phone is a bust, but his colleague arrives and gives me line of sight directions to the downtown, a beautiful old tower somewhat reminiscent of the old federal court by the Brooklyn Bridge in NYC, except it’s got a squat little radio/cell transmitter grafted on top, red and white struts growing out of much older masonry. They offer a ride, but I’m good with my Chrome bag and want to get a feel for the streets, and so I head off into the old city around the port, which is mostly shuttered, but not really dangerous in feeling.

By and by I find a bank that works, and the tower that was pointed out which turns out to be on the north end of Independence Plaza, which is where the modern downtown and the old city meet, a sort of artsier district. Hippies selling crafts off blankets on the narrow street, so now I know for sure I’ll be ok. I find my way to an internet cafe after some asking around — here the phrase “internet cafe” is not in style; you just ask for the “cyber”, pronounced see-ber — I get online and send an email, try again to call the dead phone number, etc.

So no shit, there I was, just about to start looking for a hotel to check into when BAM there’s Marko walking my way across Independence Plaza. Like shooting fish in a barrel, we always say. He and Zya have rooms set up at the Hostel Splendido (which is where you want to stay when you visit Montivideo, seriously) and so we repair there.

Uruguay is a gem of a nation, right in the sweet spot. It’s very progressive, very educated, very cultured, but not a part of the global rat race. The capital of Montivideo is a mix of old and new city. I love the way things crumble around the edges, casinos and BMWs and posh cafes, but also donkey-pulled recycling collectors. The hostel is run by seriously the most friendly and hip people imaginable. I will praise it more in subsequent posts.

There’s a lot more to write, good little stories, though no amazing news. There are beautiful people everywhere, and we had a great time getting out to Punto del Diablo by bus. This place is a kind of shanty beach paradise, a hot get away for people from the continent during holiday season (now on the wane), but relatively unknown to Europeans and Americanos. It’s not bad being one of maybe like seven gringos in town.

I’ll probably stay here for a few more days and make my way back to BA just a day or two before my flight. It’s an ultra-hot up and coming city, but I’m digging my beach-bum style too much to think about leaving tomorrow or even the day after that. Plus I have a feeling I’ll be back again before too long. The little cyber that I’m in right now which is basically a makeshift concrete box with makeshift benches, makeshift network wiring, three VOIP phones and 20 computers from about six or eight years ago (pentium three and windows ME, holla!)... it all speaks to me.

Todo Bien es muy Importante.

I’m off now. Last email sent. Putting lappy in suitcase which gets mailed to New Orleans.

Been a great week here. Going to be an even better week under different stars. Looking forward to not wearing pants for a while, For the record, I’m no nudist — plan on wearing underwear, etc, just no pants. Playa style, dig?

I’ll doubtless do a little updating via internet cafe. Catch you on the FLIP!

Want to see me piss off some sign language interpreters?

Oh yeah.

It really makes me feel bad as an actor. Look at my shitty posture and gesticulation. Listen to my non-warmed-up voice. Still, got good reviews because, in the words of the Professor Brothers, I talked about some real shit.

Exhausted and brain-swolen. Got some more things to do and some travel to figure out. Flying out tomorrow night.

Famous last words, König.

I’m having fun getting my nerd on in DC. Saw good old Gray last night — future candidate, mark my words — before getting out of hand at the bar. Old friends. Libertarian girls. Spaten. Broken cell phone battery. Forensic investigation into how I got home. These things happen.

It’s good to be around a bunch of other big brains who are into the same specific shit as me. Big Daddy Dries did a good keynote presentation about how we’ve once again doubled-through over the past year. At some point the growth will have to level off, but for now we’re powering through the recession. Probably we’ll actually benefit.

Beyond the simple economics, there’s an implicitly revolutionary angle to what we’re all up to, what with this massively successful non-organization which functions through coordination rather than planning. I want to be more a part of this end of things as opposed to doing work for the clients. Have to figure that one out when I get back.

It’s a good last run in the US. Can’t wait to get there.