I was just thinking..

About how two months ago, I was totally, which is to say blissfully, unaware of what's his name Gosselin's existence.

I first saw him by accident, when I chanced upon Nancy Grace grilling him on CNN back in September.

I can't stand CNN. And I absolutely detest Nancy Grace. There's a short list of people whose guts I hate, and they are all on talk radio and cable news. Watching Nancy Grace makes me want to claw my ears and eyes out, and then wander senseless about this vast expanse of golf courses known as Florida like Jim Bob Oedipus, getting biffed by golfin' carts n' balls for my inadvertent complicity in this aesthetic and moral meltdown we call America.


Anyway, I've only seen her show once since I've gotten home, and that by accident. Still, thanks to her, I laid eyes on that Gosselin twat's face for the first time. I've since learned all about the them.


A typically American tale. Like the balloon boy, or Georgie Pudding Pie's coronation, or Billy Jefferson's contemporaneous parodies of Huey Long, JFK and Elvis..


There's only so much a guy can take.

I'm jaded senseless.


I was driving up and down the strip mall known as Lady Lake, Florida tonight, trying to find the Blockbuster so I could rent "In the Loop," which I had read was a funny satire on the politics leading up to the Gulf War..

(Which it isn't by the way. It's not funny, it's vulgar and pathetic.. But I digress..)

I've lived here for three months, and I still can't figure out where anything is.

There are like three McDonald's, four Subways, two Wendy's, two Burger Kings, two Chick a' Fila's, two Kohl's, two Targets, a Walmart, Sam's Club, Home Depot, Lowe's, Best Buy, three or four supermarkets, Bed Bath and Beyond, a dozen tanning parlors, three or four golf cart dealerships, about three dozen other fast food outlets, a half dozen nondescript churches, and a slew of other chain stores and other boxy architectural constructs ..


I'm constantly like "where the hell am I?" I can never tell. I drive back and forth at least three times before I find the one Blockbuster behind the (I'm not exaggerating) forth Walgreen's on that five mile strip.


It's impossible for me to orientate.. Everything's just a great big jumble of nowhere and everywhere all at once.


I get caught up in a reverie, mesmerized by all the neon, and lose track of what state I'm in..


Am I in Colorado? Maine? California? Texas? Virginia?


Oh. Yeah. Florida.


I've been here too long.


I had to stay longer than I expected due to a series of doctor's appointments and other obligations that cropped up. I'm done with all that, now, and for reasons that I'm not going to go into here in public, I am not going to go to D.C. like I'd initially planned.

I'm going back to Europe in February.. That's the tentative plan, anyhow..

If anyone is particularly interested in the backstory (which has been stretching back months, but for reasons of professional confidentiality, I've refrained from talking about it at all, here) and I haven't told you yet, email me for the details.. Or I'll give you the low down when I see you next..


The upshot is that tomorrow I am heading for Miami and the Keys for two weeks, then in December I am renting a house here in the Villages through the holidays.. I'm also kicking around the concept of buying a house somewhere in Florida.. If I do, it will be somewhere without golfcarts, and with history and character.. I like these old 40+ year old houses here with thick walls, wide porch verandas on every side of the house, and great trees with Spanish moss draping the yard in mystery..

There are little magical corners of this state that are still poetical.. I may settle in one of them in the coming months. I have to think it through.


I'm going to learn how to write icons.. And maybe do stained glass. I also have another statue to gild. I need a workshop. And a place to write.. a place to set up my bookcases. And a garden. Maybe a kennel..

A place without cable. Maybe even without internet..



Somewhere where they're speaking Spanish..


¿Que pasa Lupita?


Ya basta. En fin pase el Padre Kino, disparate. Estoy finito.



---

And Now, To Be Completely Politically Incorrect..

But this story over at Slate demonstrates why neither women nor open homosexuals belong anywhere near combat.


As we all know, sex is "problematic" in civilian life.


But it is far more disruptive, to the point of often being deadly, in military life.


The main reason women and homosexuals shouldn't be under arms is that they destroy unit cohesion and utterly jack up the chain of command. In a military hierarchy, the people above you have life and death authority over you.

You can't just quit. Your command can f**k with you, in ways civilians have little comprehension of.

Sex has no place in the military. Women and homosexuals need to be kept the heck out.




I'll spot three words for those of you in the know: Drill Sergeant Reithmiller.**


'Nuff Said.


Won't even put that in the interrogative.




(** Should I start publishing my - our - stories on line, all you who lived it with me? 'Cause it was a f'* incubator of poetic sociological anecdotes. We ought to all get together and put it down, and get ourselves a book contract.. If Kayla could do it, why can't we?? )



---

That You Charlie?

Oh, S**t..

A satirical parody, with blazing fiddle, Irish brogue..






___

Photo Essay: An American Love Story

Or, things you will never see in Switzerland.

I took my camera out with me, today. This is what I saw:





























Self- portrait:





---

So, What Would Tobias Do ??

I caught a midnight showing of Paranormal Activity , tonight.. And I must say that it wasn't bad.



It was sort of like The Blair Witch meets the Book of Tobit, only with the two retards in the film being too stupid to actually pray for God to help them out with the demon.


That's my sole complaint. Katie and Micah are living together.. There's a demon stalking them, and the two of them know it. There's absolutely no doubt about it. The demon has had a particular interest in Katie, since she was eight years old. Many paranormal things happen to her. Since she moved in with Micah, the demon has been even more violent than normal..

Just like in Tobit, where the demon kills every man who marries Sarah, this demon is not going to share Katie. But despite the obvious warning signs, neither one of them really gets it.

See, this is what lack of religious literacy leads to. Pay attention in Sunday School, kids. Any retard in that sort of situation should know to pray to the Archangels Michael and Raphael.


But no. Not these nitwits.


Instead, Micah buys a Ouija board, which promptly goes haywire, and then catches fire. They go, hmmm, maybe we need a psychic to help us out. So they call the psychic, who tells them he only deals with human spirits, ghosts, and can't help them with the demon, who is pissed.. But his friend Doctor so and so is really good with them, so give him a call.. But he's out of the country for a while..

The long and short of it is that the demon ends up having his way with them. Ouija boards and calling New Age savants are their only attempts to counter attack.


The entire time I'm watching this, I'm thinking what you idiots need is to say the rosary.

And to stop living together in sin. That would help, too.


Confession, Eucharist, a good no nonsense priest to kick some demon ass. Invoke SS. Micheal, Raphael, your guardian angels..


I mean, it's not rocket science, folks. You have a bad angel on your hands? Ask the good ones to help you out.



It's really pretty simple.



But, no. Not today. Today, we're stuck with idiots who believe in demons, but not in God. Morons.



Anyway, I read the Book of Tobit for the first time this last year in Switzerland. This, after having dedicated myself to Saint Raphael for my pilgrimage. I didn't really understand what I was doing at the time, and when I later read the story of Tobit, it was in the middle of mon grand histoire d'amour fou avec le petit moineau..

I never mentioned this here on the blog back then, because I was keeping the most personal stuff to myself.


Read Tobit's story. It's very funny, and pretty damn romantic. It threw me for a loop when I read it back in March. There are things about the PMF that make that story pretty interesting, read against our particular circumstances..


At the time I thought that it might turn out to be prophetic, in a personal sense.. But, alas, no.. Not as I was suspecting back then..


Anyhow, this movie, Paranormal Activity, is basically a New Age Book of Tobit. And so ultimately a tragedy instead of a comedy.


It's inspired me to finally search out a book I've been meaning to read for a while, The Rite, which is a journalistic expose on the modern rite of exorcism in the Catholic Church. Supposed to be very good.. I'm going to see if I can't find a copy at Borders, tomorrow..



---

Watch the Football: It's Gonna Move!

This just in: Every football team will be playing football.





Forever. And ever. And ever..



---

First Response, Karen.

My cousin Karen wrote me last week, wanted to know if there was anything I though we were doing right these days, if there was anything that made me feel optimistic for our Country.


Yeah, Karen. Here's the first thing, first in a long series to come.






Crowe Jane

[Traditional, Unattributed American Blues Classic, perhaps most famous rendition by Skip James]

Crowe Janey, Crowe Janey, Crowe Jane..

Don’t you hold your head high,
Someday babe you know you gotta die..
You got to lay down and..
You got to die..

You got to..

And I wanna buy me a pistol,
Want me 40 rounds of ball..

Shoot Crowe Jane just to see her fall..
She gotta fall, She go to..

Was the reason I begged Crowe Jane,
Not to hold her head so high..

Someday babe you know you got to die,
You got to lay down and..

You got die…
You gotta ..

Now I dug her grave,
With a silver spade,
And ain’t nobody gonna take my Crowe Jane’s place..

No, you can’t take her place..
Know you can't take her..

Was a reason I begged Crowe Jane,
Not to hold her head so high,
Someday babe you know you got to die,
You got to lay down and..

Now I never missed my water,
Till my well went dry..
Didn’t missed Crowe Jane until the day she died,
Until the day she…

Was a reason I begged Crowe Jane,
Not to hold her head so high..
Someday babe, you know you gotta die,
You got to lay down…

And I dug her grave,
8 feet in the ground,
I didn’t feel sorry..
Until they let her down..
They had to let her down..

Was a reason I begged Crowe Jane,
Not to hold her head so high..

Someday babe, you know you gotta die..

And they let her down,
With a golden chain,
And every length I would call my Crowe Jane’s name...

Crowe Jane.. Crowe Jane..

Was a reason I begged Crowe Jane
Not to hold her head so high,
Someday babe you know you got to die,
You gotta lay down and ..


==


How dark and beautiful is that?


That's as pure a piece of poetry as the human race has ever sung.


Don't it make you proud to be an American?



---

Introverts of the World Disperse!!

I just read this on Crunchy Con. Rod just keeps rocking the house, as usual..

This bit is from an essay by Johnathan Rauch in this month's Atlantic.

It's on how extroverts tend to socially rape introverts.


One of the many fundamental paradoxes of my life is that I am basically an introvert with relatively good social skills, who needs periodic intimate society (parties with people he knows, likes or loves) but for the greater part prefers to be by himself.


Being with other people that I do not know, with whom I cannot have intimate discussions with, exhausts me.

Here's Rod's money quote of Rauch:

--

The worst of it is that extroverts have no idea of the torment they put us through. Sometimes, as we gasp for air amid the fog of their 98-percent-content-free talk, we wonder if extroverts even bother to listen to themselves. Still, we endure stoically, because the etiquette books--written, no doubt, by extroverts--regard declining to banter as rude and gaps in conversation as awkward. We can only dream that someday, when our condition is more widely understood, when perhaps an Introverts' Rights movement has blossomed and borne fruit, it will not be impolite to say "I'm an introvert. You are a wonderful person and I like you. But now please shush."

How can I let the introvert in my life know that I support him and respect his choice? First, recognize that it's not a choice. It's not a lifestyle. It's an orientation.

Second, when you see an introvert lost in thought, don't say "What's the matter?" or "Are you all right?"

Third, don't say anything else, either.

--



Yep. That's about right..



Social asphyxiation..


98-percent-content-free talk. Do extroverts even bother to listen to themselves?



---

Duh' Yoh

---

I've fell into my own bellybutton..

And I need to get out.


Or so says my brother Matt, based on his interpretation of this blog.


He says I need to get out more.. Like arse out of my own head, more.


And he'd be right. Being in the States is no demmed good for me. I do need to get out.


Why?


One is.. hmmm.. where to start?


Just for example, inspired by events of the last hour:


I've had one too many discussions about the Middle East, Islam and "the War on Terror" with people who can't tell a Shiite from their own ass.


That would be every single person (about a dozen so far) that I've discussed those topics with in the three weeks since I came home.


But everyone has strong opinions, anyway. Usually cartoon versions of Samuel Huntington's.


And I'm so done. I just can't handle it anymore.





Most Americans wouldn't even understand why McCain is an utter incompetent boob.


Why no man who said what he said there is fit to direct American foreign policy.


Right, details don't matter. Go back to the game.


I was listening to some morons aping Rush on local Gainesville radio this afternoon, after spending an afternoon receiving some kickass VA healthcare ..

(Had my teeth cleaned. Then, because I spontaneously decided I need a prescription for this rash I just got, I asked to see a doctor. Saw a nurse immediately, who ordered bloodwork which I had done in 30 minutes. And then I got to see a doctor who prescribed me medication about 2 1/2 hours later, after the bloodwork was ready .. This, on a day that the hospital was packed. I was given a follow up appointment in two weeks. And get this: because I'm service connected, it's all free. No! Government managed healthcare boo!! Noooo socialism!!!) ..

I listened to their redneck shtick for a half hour, during which all they talked about was ACORN.


ACORN. They help pimps and prostitutes.. Or something. And Obama likes ACORN, ACORN likes Obama.


Like, Outrageous.



We just got raped by Wall Street, and the Federal Reserve cannot even account for the 9 trillion dollars in credit that they've recently extended the banks.


You want to get pissed about something? Get pissed about that.


Listen to the Fed's Inspector General tell Congress she has no idea where the money went:





Allan Grayson, Democrat Florida's 8th District. This guy sounds like the type of politician we really need. The district boundary's five miles from here. I'm tempted to shift my legal address, just so I can vote for him.


Yeah, if anyone else wants to know why I am glad Bo Bama is our president, I'll give you a good Fox viewer friendly reason: Because I haven't had a single European tell me how much he hates the United States and/or our president since January.


Which is something I had to listen to at least a couple dozen times from various foreigners last fall. It's been nine months since anybody but a fellow American has told me how much our president sucks.


That, for me, is reason enough.


The fact that Bo bama probably knows that Salafist extremists like those in Al- Qaeda are (as a general rule) blood enemies of Shiites..

You know, Shiites, like most Iranians.. And 2/3's of all Iraqis..


Is just a big fat plus.



Mere competence is pure bonus, these days.



Anyway..



Some people enjoy contempt and outrage. Both giving and taking it. Me, it makes me start to curdle. I'm too sensitive. I lose perspective too quickly. Gotta get away from it all.



So I'm skipping the border, soon. Heading to Mexico. I am probably going to stay for a while.. I want to visit la Guadalupana, and maybe meet my hero Fred Reed and model my life on his.






---

Hamburger Lobotomy

All I can do is be cranky, lately.

It's funny, because as I descend into utter misanthropy here.. Misanthropy in the abstract, because I only hate and despise people I know on television. When I actually meet people who say what I think are stupid things.. I end up pitying them..

So I'll be drowning in bathos, unless I get out of here soon, since my parents are having a whole bunch of people over to watch a football game..

The same bunch of people who regaled me with stories of their divorces, and how much they disagree with the Church, last time I saw them..

Whom I don't despise at all, really.. No. I don't despise them. I just don't think I can take them talking about football and golf this entire afternoon.


I'll just end up cranky and clinically depressed all at once..


So, I'm going to escape, take the golf cart down to Johnny Rockets and eat a lot of hamburgers.

Or something..


And plan my ultimate escape. I think I'm going to go south. Back to Mexico.. But this time really far south, like Oxaca or something..

And I'm going to ditch the computer, too.. Because it does me no good, splurging online like this.

All I do is get annoyed, and probably annoy anyone who reads this.. To no good purpose.


Or maybe all I should do is take a nap.



In any case, this blog is definitely a cautionary tale, of what happens when you give a dork with an retardedly idiosyncratic world view and ridiculously atypical life experience a lap top and internet connection..


I need to start ignoring myself.

Two hamburgers and a huge strawberry shake will solve all my problems.


Yeah. Give my stomach something to do already..



---

Comment.

Unless I be misunderstood, which I inevitably will be, I want to just add that if I thought Ron Paul could actually win a national election, or that the Republicans were actually serious about overturning Roe v. Wade, then I would not be registering as a Democrat this month when I switch my residency to Florida.

But Ron Paul is taken as a kook. Even though his rhetoric against the Federal Reserve is spot on.

But renouncing the Fed would mean renouncing the economy of debt and usury. It would mean a return to a real economy based in small agriculture and manufacture, not exploitation of cheap international labor and gluttonous consumption of fossil fuel.


That will never ever happen.



We are sybarites, hooked.




Nor will the Republicans, or their Court appointees ever overturn Roe v. Wade. If they did, they would lose their sure hold over social "conservatives."



Those scare quotes mean I think the word conservative is meaningless in this poltical culture, by the way. What the hell is there for a traditional Christian to want to conserve?


Nothing.


Karl Rove knows I hate his guts. He had me until the war, despite that. He still has a bunch of Catholics and other traditional Christians who've been seduced by his lies.



I'm done with him and his party. Father Johnathan nails it all here.


All I will say, to add to what he says, is that Leviathan is here to stay. As is the debt. And the debt has to do with selfishness and private greed.


We're probably going bankrupt no matter what we do. I say we go bankrupt taking care of people. Go bankrupt making it more difficult for the plutocracy to screw us. Because they're going to continue to rape us, anyway. The least we can do is fight back while they're doing it.




I got called anti- American by a couple close friends these last few months. For what I've said on this blog. I laughed when they did.


Because all I'm saying here is that Nicholas Biddle was a traitor.


And that Sophie Scholl and her friends were true German patriots.


The Gestapo broke Sophie's leg when they interrogated her.


And the America I love and believe in has nothing to do with the Gestapo.


At least in my childish dreams.



...

Now, For A Mere Heavy Dose of Irony.. [revised, re- edited]

Gratis the Fraser Institute, Canada's "Libertarian" analogue to the Cato Institute..


The Agenda - Broadcast - Nadeem Esmail | Antonia Maioni | Michael Rachlis

Shared via AddThis


Note how our Canuk "Libertarian" friend is so anxious to distance himself from us.

He wants Canada to move away from the U.S. toward the Swiss and Germans, see.

Even les maudits Francais are apparently preferable.. See all the graphics in the piece that fail to include us, but still refer to them demmed "socialist" Frogs..

(er, they're actually not entirely socialist - the French government only spends a little more per capita then our Federal government does - and their system includes competitive, free market aspects, as well - but neither MSNBC nor FOX will ever tell you any of the non polemic details..)


Maybe in part because the French rate #1 in WHO rankings, while the U.S. - despite spending nearly twice as much overall, per capita (from both private and public sources) - only rates #37..

We spend twice as much because of much much higher "administrative costs" - read corporate profits sucked off our collective hind teat.




For all you "tea party" illiterates, please see the bit at the 11:57 - 12:02 minute mark especially:

"I don't think we need to talk about the United States.."

(er, because U.S. health care utterly sucks, and my Corporate Masters cannot begin to advocate for anything closer to it than the Swiss [33% private expenditure] system, because to suggest going to the U.S. system would cause you my "fellow Canadians" to riot in the streets..)


Because "my fellow numskull Americans," even single payer "socialist" *Canada* has a better health care system than we do.



Addendum: Here's NPR on the German system, as well as more on the F'n French (Freedom Fries Forevah!!) here, and (even!) here..



...

No Further Comment.

...

No Comment.

This is the transcript of Nixon and Ehrlichman's discussion in the above clip. Here are the money quotes:

Ehrlichman: "All the incentives are toward less medical care, because … the less care [HMO's] give [the public], the more money they make.”

President Nixon: “Fine.”

Ehrlichman: [Unclear] “… and the incentives run the right way.”

President Nixon: “Not bad.”



===

Revanchism

I'm stuck within all these narratives of blame..


And redemption.



The thing is that I'm a guilty bastard.


I ain't never done anything to deserve being rich, beloved and free..


But I am..


Sin upon sin. Fuck you, all I do, I seduced an oblate.


That's a joke, see.



I can't even make a good confession.


All I can grasp at are glasses of water given, at overwelling of grace, all I could spare..


Fuck you, that's my onion, I gave it to you.



Dives and Dismas,


So fucking stunned that Lazurus is risen.



===

"You Have to Play the Ball Where the Monkey Throws It.."

Just as a thought experiment, I would like everyone who reads this post to respond to this video in the comments box, below:





Thoughts, please. Is he funny? What do you think he means?



---

Trippin' with Hannah..

This last week I've spent re- acclimating to the States. I'd been a bit dopey, not really with it, not fully here..


The rule of thumb seems to be that you need as many days as you shifted time zones to fully reintegrate. Which would be six, for me this time. And sure enough, I began to feel in synche again a couple days ago..


But back on Tuesday, while I was still mildly hazed, Still, I decided to finally get around to putting my car, Hannah, back on the road. She hadn't been driven for a year, and the battery was kaput.. Not really holding a charge. We jumped her...


Hmm.. Maybe I shouldn't be anthropomorphizing my car..

But then again.. har. har..



Anyway, I drove her off the lot, because I just had to try..


To make it home by not ever fully letting off the gas fully, so feeding her constantly, even while idling.


This was not very smart.


Because, inevitably, I ended up having to push through a yellow light to avoid having to idle at the redlight and risk stalling. I lost my mother who was following me to help if there was a problem, at the red..


Then, I had to stop for another light a mile or so later.


And ended up stalling anyway.


Yep. Yep.


I pushed the car off onto the median.


Remember my cell phone was stolen in Italy.

I haven't gotten around to replacing it yet.. 'Cause to me not having a phone to annoy me is nice. No bills. No interruptions to my solitude..


Yeah.. It's so great.


So great.



Until I inevitably (as prophesied) end up stranded on a median ten miles from home..

And have to walk over to the nearby Catholic parish hall, and borrow a cell phone from a nice lady playing bingo. I make some calls, bingoladies chattering in the background.. Neither of parents answered, but I managed to get thru to Uncle Bill, who promised to come and rescue me..


I went back out, and sure enough, out on the median, there was a sheriff's deputy there parked behind Hannah, lights flashing.


Yep.


I walked out to sort things out.


As I approached the cop car, the deputy who was on the radio, saw me and barked


"Do NOT approach! Stand in front the vehicle, hands visible."



Ah. So that's how we play. Right.



Sigh.



I comply. He waves me over, and says "License, please." I give it to him. He runs it. I return to my position in plain view, in front of his car.



A couple minutes later, he pushes open his door and gets out of his cruiser, hands me my license, and says "Is that your car?"


"Yes, deputy." I smile, try to appear very relaxed and compliant.


"Are you armed?"


"Huh? No, deputy."


He responds "I don't want to have you shooting me in the head."


I stare at him, stupidly.. "Do I look like someone who would do that??"


He smiles, and says "Turn, put your hands on the hood, spread your legs."


I obey. He pats me down. His hand goes up the inside of my leg, into my crotch. He pats my pockets, feels my pen.


"Is that a knife?"


"Eh, no."


"Okay. I just want to be sure."


"Right. Thanks, deputy."


Thanks for all the trust and intimacy.


I straighten up, glance back at him. He nods. I turn around, and he grins. I'm glad he's happy. He says, "Look, your car's not registered."


Crystalline moment. Oh. Sh*t.


I groan.



Of course it's not. It's been in storage for a year. I'd completely forgotten.


He continues, "Look, that's an arrestable offense, but today's your lucky day."


"Oh? Really?"


"Yeah. See that sign?"


I look where he's pointing, at the side of the road, fifty yards away. It says "Welcome to Sumter County."

The deputy's still grinning. "First, I haven't seen you drive that car. Second, this isn't my jurisdiction. It ends over there."


"No. Really."


He puts his pen and notebook into his pocket.


"Really. Call a towtruck. And have a nice day."



Which, of course, I did.


Bill showed up, and saved the day. We called my mom. She came. We called the towtruck. Had her towed to a good garage. They replaced the battery, all the fluids, tuned her up.. I registered her that same morning, only 67$ - some 200$ less than it would cost in Maine, with the Maine excise tax.. Nice.

And then I took her home. She still needs to be detailed, and I'm going to replace the two front tires, Monday..


But tonight I took here out for a spin, and I plugged the old i- Pod in, and played my Bourguillon Mix for the first time as road tunage..






Bloody Brilliant. Yeni Türkü, that I picked up in Monza from Pat, on my mix for the first time in fifteen years..


Groovy.


So so groovy.



Ghosts of Izmir, Quebec, and senior year at P.C., the recent past in Bourguillon, and a thousand other moments all colliding in the present..


Cut with all sorts of other things.. It was beautiful.



And the moment that I was at the stop light, windows down, blasting Yeşilmişik** ..






The entire universe rejoiced.



[Note: Yeşilmişik - I've been told - means "greenish" in Turkish. I have no idea what the rest of the song means. But I just know it *has* to be groovy. I think it's about a frog. A Turkish frog. Evet. Evet. Wearing a fez. Playing a bodrum. This is, to me, the Turkish version of "The Rainbow Connection," is what I'm saying.




Just thought you ought to know.. ]

---

Inhabiting Paradox

So, as I've said, I am home.


And, as I say, it is good.



Yet, as I was afraid, here I am again directly thrown straight up against our culture's predominate heresies..


Like the insane inane idea that we are self made, autonomous, and that our lives are for our own personal satisfaction and pleasure.


That is, that we do not all belong intimately to one another. That we each are able to define ourselves as we like without reference to anyone else, that we owe no one anything that they do not "earn themselves."


As if we ever actually "earn" anything at all simply by ourselves. As if everything we receive, have, and use, wasn't first created by God, then collected, mined, harvested, winnowed, processed, manufactured, transported, constructed, or otherwise manipulated, by thousands upon thousands of our other fellow men..


Many many of them impoverished sweat shop workers in places like China or Indonesia, or illegal immigrants here from places like Guatemala, or else simple unskilled working stiffs born and used here..


Few or none of whom can afford health insurance, despite drudgery working scut jobs for at least forty hours a week..



Pick any object in the room about you now.. Think about all the people who contributed to its creation. That table. That book. That computer. The minerals, metals, plastics, mined. The oil burnt fueling the manufacture and transport. All the miners, drivers, secretaries, managers.. The designers and salespeople.


We, each of us, live vicariously by the labor of anonymous millions.


Sacramental Union, beyatches. Get you on your knees in thanks.



Anyway,


I spent the evening listening to people rationalize their divorces and failure to receive annulments, while attacking (for the most part) Catholic teaching on the sanctity and indissolubility of marriage.


I (for the most part) said nothing. It was all too much, all too depressing.


I am the child of an intact marriage, an Orthodox Catholic who believes in the sacramental reality of the Church, of all human relations.


Most especially the sexual relation through which new human life, each human person ever in being, is procreated.


I can say nothing against them in their doubt and weakness, else I condemn myself who am their brother in failure and sin.



The only thing I can say is that I pray, I will, that my life be a searing demonstration of the Divine Charity.


Come through me.


Through me.



In this vale of tears.


Tears of Sorrow, Tears of Gladness.



---

In the Immortal Words of Grandpappy Batch:

Home Again Home Again Jiggity Jig,

Home Again Home Again Like a Fat Pig..


For about two hours it was unutterably strange being around so many people speaking mi idioma with American accents.. Like when I saw Pat last week, he was the first American I'd spoken to in flesh for more than five minutes in like six months.. So when he would say simple slangy things fluently like "dude" or "don't let the bed bugs bite," I had to shake my head and rub my ears and laugh..

It's so good to be with my own folk, at long last.


Now I'm gently unwinding after two weeks of straight movement, and will spend at least two weeks here in Florida with my parents. Maybe three.

Then I will probably relocate to D.C. for two months.. There are a few issues that must be resolved, a couple questions settled..


There is a bit of backstory yet to post. I think I will write all that out.

And then either pull the plug on this, or else reconceive it..

I'm leaning toward reconception, myself..


There are more adventures coming. And I have a few things I'd still ike to unburden myself of..


So I think I will.


For now, though, I'll just say, God Bless America.


It's so very good to be home.



---

So, this is it.

Less than twelve hours left..


It's been an intense and beautiful past week.



An intense and beautiful past year.



Yesterday, I left Bari in the early afternoon.. I was supposed to change trains in Bologna, for an overnight over the Alps to Fribourg..


But I was so tired after getting so little sleep on the ferry, that I totally flaked out, missed my stop, and rode all the way to Milan.


This put a royal wrench through my plans, but in a good way, because I got a chance to see Pat and Franny and Lorenzo.. Pat and Renny and I had caffè macchiato and chocolate croissants for breakfast, and we all visited a couple churches together, before they put me safely back on the train revivified and refortified..

So my trip both began and ended with Pat.. Perfect. Here's a shot, of the two of us eating together last week:




This afternoon, I got back home. Roberto met me at the station, and after taking care of some logistical issues, we spent our evening together..


I have terrific friends.


I'm going to bed for six or seven hours, and then will breakfast in similar fashion as I did with Pat, but this time with Roberto.


I will then take the train to Geneva and at noon will fly home.


Exchanging the moment with one set of friends for another.


I'm looking forward to seeing all you guys. More than I can say..



---

Tomb of Saint Nicolas of Antalya, Bari..

This, the end of my pilgrimage.

It began in Venice at the Tomb of Saint Lucy, reached it's culmination in Medugorje, and ended with gentle perfect symmetry and rectitude at the tomb of Saint Nicholas in Bari.





I've been to Bari several times before. With Moe.

But I haven't been back in 15 years..


And the place is yet haunted with that past.



It hasn't changed much, buddy. I was seeing pictures of you, the entire time I was there.



There is one place though, that we were too young and dumb to know existed last time.


It's in that exquisite medieval maze of an old city..


The Church of Saint Nicolas of Bari. Also of Antalya. Also of Fribourg..


A gorgeous old gem of Romanesque** purity marred by a stupid baroque ceiling accretion.






I came to Bari yet once again, to visit it. To end my pilgrimage with him.


For many reasons. First, he was from one of my favorite places, Anatolia. From one of my favorite parts, the south Mediterranean coast near Kaş.


He is also perhaps the most famous Christian saint in the world, by the way.


But most people only know him by his Dutch name, Sinter Klaus.. Holy Nicholas. Santa Claus. He left gold in the shoes (stockings) of some poor girls who couldn't marry for lack of dowry. This act of love, along with the Gifts of the Magi, is at the root of all Christmas gift giving.

His feast is at the beginning of Advent, on December 6th. I've already mentioned on the blog that because the Cathedral here in Fribourg is his, that that day is one of the great feasts of Fribourg, as well.


Also, and not at all incidentally, one of the most important of all Swiss Saints is Saint Nicolas of Flue.

I also worked this year for two other Nicholses, as well. Father Nicolas Buttet, author of "The Book" and founder of the Frat; as well as my more immediate superior, the head of the Frat in Bourguillon, Nicolas Carron; are both dedicated to Nicolas, ce n'est pas par hasard .



But most importantly, Saint Nicolas will help undo the Schism.



He is a saint who draws the equal veneration of the Orthodox and Catholic churches.


He is one of the seminal saints of the One Holy Apostolic Orthodox Catholic Church.


And here, my friends, is my proof:





On one same altar at least (one of very very few) the liturgical sacrifice of both the two Great Ancient Apostolic Churches is yet now offered, still:





Here, in Bari. And without apparent rancor..


Unlike Jerusalem, where the various monks of the divers jurisdictions seem to live in tension, and sometimes even sink to fisticuffs, here in Bari there seems to be utter concord.



Thank God.


There is yet hope for us, still. Peace.

Credemus in Unum Deum.

Πιστεύουμε σε έναν Θεό.



Still. Forever, yet.



As a penultime coda, let me just mention that my fathers spiritual, the Brothers Preachers, have been entrusted with care of this sweet sublime holy shrine. There is, to the left side of the main altar sanctuary, beside the solely Orthodox altar to the far left, this icon:





SS. Dominic and Thomas Aquinas O.P. Holy Fathers, Pray for Us.



Because this, you know,





Is really what it is all about. Filial piety in the faith of and before the tombs of our mothers and fathers, who have lived and loved this way for centuries reaching unto millennia.




Keep on keepin' it real.







[ **Note: Romanesque is truly the best of all church architectural styles. Simple, stark, austere, and ragingly beautiful.. We need to revive it, now. When I build my churches, they will be Romanesque. ]



---

An American Heretic: Or Guy** Lombardi, You Suck.

[ ** Note: That's my idea of a joke. I'm of course actually referring to Vince, but you got that, it, right? I'm funny. ]


I'm posting too much, today. But I'm tired and for the first time this trip, a little lonely. There's nobody to talk to, so I'm going to post to the void.

I'm sitting here in a bar with a wireless hotspot next to the quay, waiting for four hours until the ferry leaves for Bari at 23h00.


The guys in the bar have Croatian professional basket ball on TV. I'm sitting here, watching them watching it, and my heart is sinking. I haven't seen basketball in over a year. Seeing it now reminds me how much I dislike it. Watching a bunch of doofuses bounce a rubber ball up and down back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, trying to put it through a net.

Oh. He scored. Yes.

All the false tension. I hope the doofuses in the red jerseys win. Not those evil blue dudes, no. Like ooh, this is just like the other 30,000 games I've seen. Nothing different ever happens. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. Ooooh. Yes.

It's like porn. Ubiquitous in our culture, and utterly stupid, mind and soul numbing idiocy. The same damn thing over and over again, inexorable, inevitable, unremitting.


In middle school I played. One season. I tried to fake being a jock.


I played with heart, man. Scrappy. Full of cheek.



But I never understood what a pick was. "No, Curtis, no! Go left, fake, then break right!" "Sure coach, sure." "No Curtis, your other left!" (General hilarity ensues when the other players mock me for the 400th time for not being spatially intelligent, like that.. )


Yeah. I was all heart, no skill. Just like Rudy, but without the miracle touchdown or field goal.


There was one time, my Senor year of high school, when I finally quit running. Instead of going out for Cross Country (a "sport" I was decent at, because it mostly about having heart and being able to kick it out despite the pain.. And that's my gig, see.. ) like I'd done for five years prior, I decided to play soccer..

Second string half back and full back. I got to play, and I was okay. In Maine we go in and try to knock the other guy down without getting a flag thrown. Very subtle play. I'm big, and I can run. I could do that.


One game though, we were playing Central. And we were kicking their a**es.

Bad.


Like 11 to 1 bad.


Coach pulled the entire first string, and just for kicks put the second string defense on offense.


The first and only time I'd ever seen the front line. I was striker.


And the hilarious thing - no, sorry, sad, sad, horrifying thing - was that we kept on kicking their a**es. Despite our every effort to stop.


At one point, I - me - that's right, me -


I blew by their entire defense.


Including their goalie. Who for some unknown reason had decided to come out of the goal to midfield, leaving their goal wide open.



It was my Rudy moment, folks. Nothing but air between me and immortal glory..


Our 13th goal. And the widest margin of victory in Maine State High School Boys Soccer that season.


All I had to do was walk the ball in.



But instead, I tried for the corner. From about ten yards out.



The ball flew and hovered, spinning slowly in a skewed wobble to the side..


It hung there..


And then, in one agonizing moment it flew high. And wide.



I'd done the impossible.


I'd missed.



Coach was howling. The entire first string was clutching stomachs, gasping for air, rolling on the ground on the sideline ..


Everyone thought it was really, really funny.



Which, of course, it was.




Like the poor bastard immortalized every week on the old 1970's ABC's Wide World of Sports opening montage: the clip of that ski jumper who came off the end of the ramp and tripped, falling and smashing off the roof of the building at the end of the ramp.. While Howard Cosell intones,

"The Thrill of Victory.. And the Agony of Defeat.."


Boosh, crash, smash, ah! ouch, ouch, man, man.. Poor guy. Poor guy.

Damn. He ain't ever gonna live that down.


Traction.

And then joshing mockery for the rest of his miserable, wretched life..



That's how it was.


Ah, all you can do is laugh.


Then realize that you're just faking it. And relax. Quit, and go back to reading your books.


Which is what I've done.


I've never understood it. They call it competition.


"Curtis, 110% Curtis!"


"Uh, but coach, that's mathematically impossible."


"Kid. It's a metaphor."


"Uh, no, coach. It's not a metaphor. It's stupid."


"Kid, just shut up, and get in the shower.."



It's like when I told my wrestling coach I wasn't going to come out for my Sophomore Season. He almost teared up, and said, "Curtis, you're going to regret this decision for the rest of your life."

I'd wrestled one year, and it was in fact a great experience. I was in the 148/152 weight class, and got my can kicked repeatedly.. My record was 1 and 8. I wrestled in the Eastern Finals against the guy who went on to take the State title in our weight class.


He ate me alive. Destroyed me. At one point he took me down so hard I saw stars.


I'm actually pretty proud of that. That's not a metaphor***, either, folks. I literally saw lights, like stars, exploding in my head.


Truly character building experience, that.

Sucking weight was interesting, too. I was in the middle of my adolescent growth spurt, and to keep within weight I was constantly sucking. Fasting.. Spitting in cups, wearing trash bags under my clothes to school, using diuretics and laxatives.



I'm glad I did it. Just like I'm glad I joined the Army.


You learn things. You get tougher.


But the funny thing is, I've never once regretted quitting. In fact, I liked quitting. It felt good.


It still feels good.




And I've never once, in my entire life, given 110%..



And I never will.


[ **Second Note: Actually, "I saw stars" is a metaphor.. Because I did not literally see stars. I "saw" lights in my head that *looked like* "stars" .. Which last would be a simile. All of which is ironic coming from a guy who just made fun of someone for being similarly confused.. ]


---

Dubrovnik is Beautiful..

It reminds me of Venice, but much smaller and with more fortifications, fewer tourists, and no canals.. Venice is of course on a group of Islands crossed by canals.. Dubrovnik flows out onto a pair of peninsulas, and is backed by a hill that is almost a cliff. Both places are Renaissance gems, rife with churches, and bound by flashing waters.

It also reminds me of two of my favorite Turkish towns: Kaş (the cliff) crossed with Bodrum (the Venetian Crusader citadel on a peninsula)..


It's glorious. Really. Check it out:










---

News from Dubrovnik

In Dubrovnik, Croatia..

I have been here before, in my dreams..



This trip has turned out to be utterly amazing..

My pilgrimages tend to turn out well, but this one has been particularly beautiful..

Just for the record: This is my sixth major Marian - after Knock, Lourdes, Fatima, Czestochowa and Bourguillon - and at least eighth epic pilgrimage..


[ Six + Two - the Marians, plus my walk to Santiago and my bike through Canterbury to Rome.. Actually, I've been on many more than eight, if you count all the places I've been to by car, plane, train or bus.. But to make this essential list it has to be a major shrine and/or reached eschewing modern transport.. Huh.. Still, maybe I should add Jerusalem to my list here, as well as my tour of Coptic monasteries along the upper Nile, because both those pilgrimages were epic, too, even if I made them by rental car.. ]



Anyway, this sojourn has maybe been the best of all them..


All I hoped it would be.


I left Medugorje this morning, so I'm still processing the experience, but I can tell you that my time there has been revolutionary.. I'd hoped for the miracle, and I think I've in fact received it.


Many things that have been harrowing my heart seem finally to be dead.. I feel free.


I'm going to blog the details in discrete posts over the next week, not chronologically, but in terms of what seems most poetical in my memory at the moment.


I'll just add that I'm taking the ferry overnight to Bari, where I will finally visit St. Nicolas' tomb. I will pray there most particularly for the Rogers, the Drehers, SS. Peter & Paul, Holy Theophany, and for the reunion of the Churches in truth and love.


Join me in this prayer to end the Schism. It's one of the most important that we can make.


After kickin' it with Santa, I will take the train north to Fribourg tomorrow afternoon, and arrive there early Wednesday morning. I'll spend the day with Roberto, and then head to Geneva in the evening.


I fly home to Florida at noon on Thursday, September 10th.



I arrived here last year on the 11th. 364 days later, I return the day before.


That, in more ways than one. Let the dead bury their own. I come home, born again.



---

News from Medujorge [revised]

[ Note, 9/7/09, ex post facto from Dubrovnik: I wrote this on a hotel computer, and too quickly.. there was no wireless that I could access with my laptop anywhere in Medugorje, so I was reduced to using a PC.. And every time that happens, I get annoyed, because something *always* goes wrong.. This time it was that Mac's Mobileme website - which is where I have to go to get my email, when I'm not using my own Mac laptop - does not support Explorer.. And the hotel computer would not allow me to download Firefox so as to open the site..

Which while all that is technically Apple's fault, not Microsoft's, I still blame it on Bill Gates. This, because I've become one of those irrational hateful snobs who rabidly despise everything Microsoft.. (Uh, Sorry, Mike.. I suppose you're reading the blog - I didn't know that until I got your email this morning - I hope you can forgive me for passionately hating your company.. ) All I can say is that I'm typing this on a Mac, and I so love my computer.. Because even if Apple engages in many of the same sorts of predatory business shenanigans that Microsoft does, they at least turn out hardware that is elegant, and software that actually works. Stresslessly. Only one major problem in two years using my three Macs.. As opposed to a major problem virtually every week back in the Windows Dark Age..

I mean, If I could go Linux, I would, but I can't. I'm just not smart enough to write my own drivers and carp like that.. So I'll fight the Imperial Monopoly the next best way possible. By buying Macs. For the rest of my days..

Anyhow, what follows is the post I wrote in Medugorje, corrected for errors of style, spelling and grammar.. Cheers. ]


I can't sign into my Mobileme account because this bloody computer only has Microcrap Explorer, which of course is unsupported by Mac's website..

Consider this a general email, just to let everyone know I'm alive, well, and enjoying this place immensely..

So, I arrived here on Thursday afternoon on an overnight bus from Belgrade via Mostar..

I walked down the main street toward the church here, which I hadn't realized is named for St. James.. Which links this pilgrimage with my pilgrimage four years ago to Santiago de Compostella.

There's a hotel right next to the church, where I took a room at - get this - 15 euros a night. It's simple, but clean, and the water's hot enough after you let it run for three minutes. I walk out on the balcony, and the church is right there.. It's perfect. Try doing that at Lourdes or Fatima.. In Rome, the only thing that cheap is the Youth Hostel, where they charge you 16 euros to sleep in a dormitory.. The hotels start at 65 euros, and a decent room will run you 95.

Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia are all cheap.. things run on average about half of what you would pay in Western Europe.. Or even less. Rosaries are 2 or 3 euros a piece.. I bought a rosary last week in Italy when Pat and I visited a monastery together, and it cost me 12 euros..

But that's just icing, the real pleasure is that the people here are fantastic.. The Bosnians and Croats are beautiful, and there are pilgrims from probably 2 to 3 dozen other countries. The energy's incredible.. I'm so digging it..


I confessed Thursday night, and have been going to mass and saying the rosary daily..

So, in summary, It's been great so far, just exactly what I needed, I think..


I'll blog in more detail, when I get the chance.. Until then, check this key board's moves:

žćšlovia..

Isn't that great?? Love it, so cool..



---

Thoughts on Belgrade

[ This post was begun in Belgrade, last week, but because I couldn't upload the photos and video there, I mothballed it until today, 9/7/09, Labor Day in Dubrovnik..

I still can't upload the video.. My connection's still too slow.. It'll have to wait for the States.. Just still images, for now.. Still. Hope y'all enjoy.. ]


When I arrived in Serbia, I wasn't expecting much. In fact, I had pretty low expectations for the entire trip.


Last time I was in Yugoslavia, was 1992.. Moe and I took a train from Switzerland to Istanbul via Belgrade and Sophia.. This was at the beginning of the war. There were armed Serbian soldiers on our train.. We only debarked to change trains in Sofia, and that place was a wretched shell of Stalinist hell.. Grime, dirt, cracks, coal smoke, nearly empty store shelves with only a few odd cans labeled in inscrutable Cyrillic, huge socialist realist murals on public buildings, bitter cold, glum unsmiling people; and a bit of gratuitous police brutality at the train station where we witnessed an old man get pummeled by two young cops bearing assault weaponry, in front of a crowd of people..


A very interesting place and time to visit, but not exactly fun..

So, those memories in mind, I steeled myself for a ascetic experience..


The customs and immigrations post at the boarder was not promising..




But my initial gimlet lack of enthusiasm has turned out to be utterly unjustified.


Belgrade, and the rest of the former Yugoslavia, has turned out to be great fun..



When I arrived in Belgrade, I had an afternoon to kill. I decided to do three things:

1.) Get cleaned up. So I went and rented a bed and shower and internet connection at a hostel around the corner from the train and bus station in central Belgrade..

And this is where I have to tell you that the Serbs are very fine people.

First, they are super friendly. Every person I talked to was enthusiastic to meet me. I met Ivan, the contact person for the hostel at the train station.. Initially, I was a bit wary, based on long experience with such types.. You need to be careful. But in Ivan's case, I was needlessly suspicious. He immediately made himself very helpful, going out of his way to help me figure out the bus schedule to Mostar/Medugorje, then buy my ticket. He even gave me the token you need to get into the bus station, which while only worth 10 cents or something, meant one less hassle for me run around negotiating in pidgin English, burdened with my bags, later that evening..

This before I'd even agreed to rent the space at the hostel.. Which I then of course did, for the bargain price of 8 Euros.. Plus 40 Serb shekels (drachma? escudos? lira? I forget..) worth roughly 60 U.S. cents, for a beer for Ivan.

Because that boy earned it..


2.) To see at least one Serbian Orthodox church..

As it turned out, I saw two. The two most important in Belgrade. Center Belgrade is pretty compact, and I walked all over it, and managed to see both the Serbian Patriarch's Cathedral, St. Micheal's, and the Temple of Saint Sava, which is still currently under construction, and is the largest Orthodox church in the world.

I took videos of both of these, but my connection here is too slow to upload them. I'll post the film with commentary later, when I get home.

Until then, I give you two still shots of the church exteriors:



The Temple of Saint Sava, obviously in imitation of the Hagia Sofia in Constantinople.




And St. Micheal's, the Cathedral of the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Like most Orthodox Cathedrals in my experience, it is surprisingly small.. And being as it was built in the 19th Century, the interior is very baroque and the iconography naturalistic.. This all in stark contrast to the style of the Temple of St. Sava, which is just as old school inside as it is out. Only about 10% of the immense interior of St. Sava's is now properly covered in iconography, but when it is finally done, it will be insanely beautiful..

But more on all that, later..


3.) My third mission was to eat a Serbian meal.

Here, I failed. I couldn't find a open air restaurant that struck my fancy.. So I ended up settling for sandwiches..

As a result, I ended up stuck with about 18 Euros (1570 drachmas or whatever have you) in extra Serb cash..




Now let us praise us some famous Serbs.. The guy on the 100 "drachma" note is Nikolai Tesla.. The rest of them I'd never heard of..


Note that the money is colorful. This is not a good sign.. The more colorful it is, the less likely anyone will take it seriously.

Money should be one color.

Green.

Err.. this is where my own particular streak of ugly American leaps out, I guess..


When I got to Medugorje, I tried to change this into Bosnian marks. But no one would take it. The lady at the first bereau de change I asked actually crinkled her nose, and said "Serbs, we don't like them."

Like they have cooties, or something..

And I was like "Lady, I ain't asking you to make love to 'em, this is just ah freaking business.."

But no. These people just don't get along. And even here in Dubrovnik, in Croatia, nobody will touch the stuff.

I was like "But can't we all just get along?" You take Polish and Czech, which is just as fake as this Serbian crap??? Why? Oh, why? Just because of that nasty little war?? Come on..



The irony is that they all speak the same language. The Croats call it "Croat," the Serbs "Serb," and now even the Bosnians claim they speak their own distinct language, "Bosnian."

It may be a bit audacious for me to say, since I can only pronounce five words of it, but all three dialects seem to me pretty much the same. "Dobra dan" means "good day," "moli" means "please," and "Hvala" means "thanks," etc. This last is pronounced "Fala" by Serbs, but "Havala" by everyone else..


Even the big difference that I expected to find, and was afraid of, turned out (amusingly and ironically enough) to be nearly non- existent:

I though for sure that Serbian would be written in Cyrillic. Which I cannot read. The Greek and Slavic alphabets annoy me. So I just haven't gotten around to learning it all. Which means that when I'm in Greece, I'm more or less illiterate.

This sucks. Which - other than Athenians being the most truculently anti- American people I've met, and this back in 1991 - 92, when we were masters of the Universe and nearly everybody loved us - made visiting Greece rather an annoying experience, and set up a very unfavorable contrast to Turkey; where I can read, and the people are fantastically hospitable, warm and human..

Even now, after all the crap that's gone down..

But in Belgrade, the really interesting thing is that at least 90% of the commercial signage and advertising is in Roman script. All the government stuff - road signs and official messages - are only in Cyrillic. No courtesy romanizations here, which even the bloody Egyptians afford visitors.. So the street signs were unreadable.

But everything else was fine..

And probably 2/3's of the people were even wearing English.. On their T-shirts. I never saw even a single shirt bearing anything but English. "I'm a Ninja, You Can't See Me." "Hello Kitty." Band T-shirts galore.. Funny stuff that only foreigners, idiots, or gangbangers (probably?) Stateside would get caught wearing like "I'm a pimpdaddy mo- fo" ..


This all amused me, endlessly..

But being a bonehead, I naturally took absolutely no pictures of this.


Same vein, virtually all the music I heard in public there was also in English.. I finally got some traditional Serbian music on the bus to Mostar.. It sounds like Turkish music crossed with Mexican - lachrymose, big strings, sometimes with gypsy accordions.. Great stuff, but apparently not very popular amongst the urban sophisticates in Belgrade..



A few more impressions:

The Serbs like children. Like in Latin America, there are families with children, everywhere. Dads even, pushing strollers. Little kids running riot in public spaces..

Big plus points for this. Loved it.


They also apparently really like to read. There are bookstores throughout, even sidewalk tables vending books. Again, mostly in Roman script. This impresses me, because I've lived in a powdunk small (100k people) Mexican city (Cd. Obregon) for a year where there were no bookstores at all.. And then in Cairo, where there are 18 million people and only three or four real bookstores.. Two of which are owned by the American University of Cairo.. Unless you want to read the Quran or Sheik Ramadan Abdul Ding a-Ling's thoughts on the Shariah (for which there is an Islamic bookstore on near every other corner) you are near crap out of luck..

So seeing all those books made me very, very happy.


They have also taken to capitalism with a vengeance. There is advertising everywhere. Too much of it, really.. Still, the place, though not anywhere as architecturally interesting as Krakow or Budapest, has a great Energy, and is well kept up.. Prosperous. Bustling.

The ghosts of Marshal Tito seem well and banished..


Last point: Serbian women are very nice. This in more ways than one.. I wish I could describe their style.. But my vocabulary fails. Suffice to say they are very pretty and rather chic, but in a muted Slavic sort of way.. And they're extremely friendly. Which, for a red blooded American boy like myself is great. Hardly any of that anticipated Slavic stoicism and truculence, like I experienced in Poland.. The Serbs are cuter than the Poles in aggregate, too..


But I went there in winter. And spring's since become summer..


Then it's maybe more just me.. It's not just the girls who've gotten prettier, see.



The final verdict:



The Serbs are great. I caught myself idly wondering if and when I might swing returning for an extended stay.


I'm really intrigued by them.. What makes them tick? Why did they really start that war? Is the story we got in our press at all in tune with the reality? Or, like with so many things, did our press lie and propagandize the story, deliberately misunderstand and simplify things, and reductively obfuscate the whole truth?


Because, honestly, the Serbs have truly surprised me. I thought I would dislike them, and here I've gone and fallen hard in like with them..



It's amazing to think that ten years ago we were bombing the hell out them..

And now they greeted me with smiles and open arms..


Huh.. Maybe the neo- cons are right, after all..


Maybe we can indeed bomb people into democracy, capitalism, prosperity and pro- Ameicanism..


Or maybe there's more to it than that.


I think I finally need to get to know me some Serbs..


And Croats and Bosnians and Kosovars..



---

Viva Beograd

I've arrived in Belgrade. I'm taking a brief respite in a hostel here, to get cleaned up and do email.. I leave tonight at 22h00 for Mostar in Bosnia.. I am making no advanced plans, so I don't know what the continuing transport situation is to Medjugorje, but if all goes well I hope to be there tomorrow afternoon..

The overnight from Venice was a bit brutal, as you might expect. I bought two liters of beer and some Chicken Tikka Masala and garlic nan bread to make it all kinder & gentler, and that helped, but not quite enough to smooth all the pain away..

The ticketing in Italy was horrible - The attitude of the clerks when I asked for tickets to places in Yugoslavia was as if I were asking for passage to Kuala Lampur or Dar es-Salaam, or something.. At first they were mystified, and then when they finally understood where I wanted to go, they were both incredulous..

The only place I asked for that they could ticket to was Belgrade. Not Sarajevo, not Split, nor Dubrovnik. Certainly not Mostar or Medjogorje itself.. It turns out that I probably could have stopped in Zagreb, more than 100 km north of here, and taken the bus from there, which would have been smarter, probably..

But this is still working. I'm getting there, and taking it all in as it comes..



This, by the way was stuck on the side of my trash receptical by my seat..





I was obliged to change trains last night in God awful nos where Croatia.. I didn't notice it until this morning. I'd chosen the seat in the dark, and there was no other seat with one..

I'll take that as a good omen..


---

Because Helicopters are Cool..

I don't have time to fully blog my weekend with Pat, and it deserves a full post.

It'll have to wait..

Until then, I give you my public this, by way of appetizer..





The building is the albergo we stayed at. Notice Pat is sporting his P.C. tee.

Go Frairs! We're everywhere. Har har.



---

An Afternoon in Venice

I arrived in Venice yesterday afternoon, and after a half-hearted attempt to find a two or one star hotel (I don't care if it's a dive, so long as it's a clean dive) where I could save some cash, I just gave up and settled for a three star down the street from the station. 65 Euros (as opposed to the between 30 and 45 I wanted to spend) - But, get this: a super nice room, with free wifi (I've become used to getting gypped all over Europe, where the custom is to charge extra for access) - and a breakfast (with meat and cheese and real coffee!) included. This, in a full hotel at the end of the high season, in Venice. Last time I rented a room in Italy, it was in Milan, where I paid 45 Euros for one of those one star clean dives, with a shared bathroom down the hall, and no amenities..

I mention all this, because this is the sort of thing that makes one a shiny happy traveler. Which is, believe me, a very good thing to be..

Especially since tonight, I am on an overnight train bound for Belgrade. After all last night's pleasantness, I'm going to be well fortified for that journey.


I'm taking this week as it comes, see. While I've made no concrete plans beyond having a train ticket for tonight; I've naturally already gamed this week out a bit, and I've realized I cannot make it to Turkey without turning this into a marathon, and completely stressing myself out. So, I've decided instead to just relax, and see the shrine. I'll stay as long as I feel necessary. Probably three days.

Then, I'm going to the Adriatic, and I'm going snorkeling.



I'm back in Fribourg by 8 a.m. on the 9th. I'll spend the day with Roberto, then overnight in Geneva. I fly out of Geneva at noon on the 10th.



So.. That's the plan, folks. This afternoon, I see Venice for the first time (a dozen times to Italy, and never once to St. Mark's.. That absurdity is rectified, today.)


I'll blog it all as it happens, and I can find wifi access..


[I've got minor computer issues, here, by the way.. I, uh..

Managed to get my laptop wet on the train to Milan..

Yeah.

Pay attention when putting your computer bag on train bathroom counters, folks.. Sometimes, the faucets are sensor controlled, see, and if your bag happens to be open, a potentially catastrophic alignment of open tap and laptop may spontaneously occur..

Fortunately, Apple makes kick**s hardcore hardware, and my laptop has seemingly survived, intact..

Except for my battery, which has gone and seized up on me.. I'm going to look for new one today in Venice, where I'll try and find a replacement between walking the canals and visiting the tomb of the Apostle Mark..]



Anyhow, I'm still taking prayer requests. Post them in the combox, or else email them to me, and I'll bring them with to every shrine along my way.





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Aux Montagnes

Me and Pat:




Me, in the Alps:



Pickin' Alpine raspberries..



Pat, Kickin' the Sound of Music Hardcore:




I'm far too tired, and have no time to tell you all the story.. More to follow, soon..

So, after nine months, I have finally escaped Bourguillon.

[written yesterday on the train.. today Pat's rousted me out of bed at 6 a.m. and is actually going to make me walk up some damnmountain.. more on this, later.. ]

I’m so out to lunch right now.. On train, bound for Milan. The seats are arranged in groups of four around tables, which means I’m in close proximity to three strangers. I had on the seat a diet Pepsi between my legs.. A few minutes ago, it fell onto the floor, and spilled all over the foot of the woman sitting across from me.. I didn’t even notice until she started to sit up, and I saw that about half the bottle had already pooled out on the floor. Then, I sat there in a daze while she cleaned her foot and then the floor off (yeah, I’m so hazed out right now, I even watched her find tissues to wipe the floor off—total f*g idiot, really, I’m telling you.. This is not my mother’s fault.. She raised me better than this, I swear.. ) .. I mumbled “sorry” and “scuzi” a couple times, awkwardly, not knowing the word to apologize in German.. Feeling like a complete tool..

Which is of course exactly what I am.

So..

In the Alps, now. Headed for Italy. Milan.. Monza. And a weekend playing cards, drinking wine, and tramping the mountains with one of my very best and oldest friends, Patricio. It’s so good.. So good. I’m going to take loads of pictures, and blog it all. Now that I’m free of all my dear neurotic Swiss and all their obsessive privacy issues, I’m going hard-core exhibitionist. No innocent bystanders.. I’m postin’ it, folks..

Postin’ it freaking all.

We’ll try to keep all kid-safe and family friendly, no worries..

Ah, yes.. Now that I’ve figured out this facebook gig, I think I’m going to post some more video of the back-story there, to be shared with all my buddies… Let’s excavate some history here.. I’m not all that well organized on my hard drives, and I may not be able to find all the cool stuff. But I’ll put some stuff up, anyway.

(Note and aside about my hard drives, I was mucking about last week, and realized I may have accidently erased almost all of the pictures and video I took while biking from London to Rome.. Because I can’t find any of it, and you know, it’s only a slight – not total - mess.. I’d moved it off my main disk, to my external, and then.. You know.. Something happened..

I’m a lover and a poet, not a rocket scientist.. Err.. Yeah..

That’s how I rationalize myself being so inexcusably retarded.. )

Anyway, this train thing’s so odd.. Nine months.. And I haven’t really been anywhere except Valais a dozen times, and to Geneva twice..

And here I am headed to Monza, Medjugorje then Turkey..

El Gitano Pellegrino is on the path, once again.. And the movement is soothing my soul, as I type.. It was necessary to stop, and stay for a while.. But I’m not a monk, and I am not meant to remain. I’m a anchorite and a mendicant, and I am made to move..

And doing it feels so good..

The last four or five days have been a blur of activity, and pretty stressful.. I am always ambivalent about endings and transitions like this… I never know how to feel. You sit there, in a room that you’ve spent a certain chunk of your life in.. This case 9 months, which is to say some 270 days and nights.. And you don’t want to stay, but it’s like how is it that I’ve reached this point and am finally going to leave?

The moment, so fecund with the past, is so strong, but you know that it’s very soon to be over.. And the coming moment is so blank with possibility.. After so much of the same, perpetual perpetuity.. Suddenly nothing will again be this again, and you cannot imagine how tomorrow will go.

Nostalgia and anticipation annihilate one another, and all I do is end up dazed and mildly agitated..

And end up pouring soda on strange ladies..


Yeah..

270.

Each a blessing, you know. It’s been so good to be here. It was exactly what I needed. When I came, I was struggling, broken in some ways.. My spiritual life was a mess. My erotic life was dead. I felt betrayed, I was furious. Full of judgments, and suspicious about far too much.. It was all wrecking me.

Yeah.. A year ago, I was a wreck. I was fat. Out of focus. Depressed. Emotionally deranged.

Now, after a bike ride to Rome, and 9 months with the crazy Frat, that’s all changed.

I’m back, and in ways I never have been before. I finally own myself.. I know who and what I am about. And, whatever else happens, I’m not screwing around anymore.

I’m not going to apologize. I’m going to take some names.

The only question is exactly how epic it is all going to be.


There are multiple things I have to say.. I could ramble more, and turn this into one of those multi topicked screeds I’ve been kicking out lately.. But, no. I’m hither for resolved: Only one theme per post. More proper paragraphing… Strive for punchiness and clarity of style..


Which means I’ll blog about the Big Meeting and the fin de l’histoire du petit moineau fou in separate posts.

I’ll close by simply saying this:

Thank God for the Frat. I love them all so much. They’re so crazy, so good.. So nutty. You know how great it is to be Catholic? To be in communion with such people, to bear the same name as they? What an honor. I’m so proud of them. God bless and keep them all, and forever.

If you love me, pray for them. Union de priere et grace eternelle.

You down?


---

Update: Le Grand Méchant Loup est Mort..

Big news at breakfast this morning: The big bad wolf that was killing all those sheep in Valais is dead. They've killed him.

All Switzerland rejoices.

So, you all can now relax. Switzerland is safe, once again..


---

Poli Sci 101

Dearing just sent me this.

It says it all.. Much better than I just did.



DEMOCRATIC

You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
You feel guilty for being successful.
Barbara Streisand sings for you.

REPUBLICAN

You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
So?

SOCIALIST

You have two cows.
The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.

COMMUNIST

You have two cows.
The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
You wait in line for hours to get it.
It is expensive and sour.

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE

You have two cows.
You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.

BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE

You have two cows.
Under the new farm program the government pays you to shoot one, milk
the other, and then pours the milk down the drain.

AMERICAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one.
You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows. You are
surprised when one cow drops dead. You spin an announcement to the
analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses.
Your stock goes up.

FRENCH CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.
You go to lunch and drink wine.
Life is good.

JAPANESE CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow
and produce twenty times the milk.
They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains.
Most are at the top of their class at cow school.

GERMAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give
excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour.
Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.

ITALIAN CORPORATION

You have two cows but you don't know where they are.
While ambling around, you see a beautiful woman.
You break for lunch.
Life is good.

RUSSIAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You have some vodka.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You have some more vodka.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.

TALIBAN CORPORATION

You have all the cows in Afghanistan , which are two.
You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature's private parts.
You get a $40 million grant from the US government to find
alternatives to milk production but use the money to buy weapons.

IRAQI CORPORATION

You have two cows.
They go into hiding.
They send radio tapes of their mooing.

POLISH CORPORATION

You have two bulls.
Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.

BELGIAN CORPORATION

You have one cow.
The cow is schizophrenic.
Sometimes the cow thinks he's French, other times he's Flemish.
The Flemish cow won't share with the French cow.
The French cow wants control of the Flemish cow's milk.
The cow asks permission to be cut in half.
The cow dies happy.

FLORIDA CORPORATION

You have a black cow and a brown cow.
Everyone votes for the best looking one.
Some of the people who actually like the brown one best accidentally
vote for the black one.
Some people vote for both.
Some people vote for neither.
Some people can't figure out how to vote at all.
Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which one you
think is the best-looking cow.

CALIFORNIA CORPORATION

You have millions of cows.
They make real California cheese.
Only five speak English.
Most are illegals.
Arnold likes the ones with the big udders.


---


Har har.. Brilliant. Simply brilliant..


---

Economics, Politics, As If People Mattered.. [revised]

I've decided something. I'm done being frustrated. I'm going to act. I've become an Evolutionary, which is to say a not a Counter, but an Anti- Revolutionary.

I've been inspired, see.. Those boys, over at The Front Porch Republic, have just been rocking my house. They've been adding definition to my thoughts, articulating things I have been feeling in my marrow for a very long time. I am so grateful to them..

I was just mulling stuff (oh, I know, what else do I ever do, you ask?) and I realized that I really do not understand our legislative process.. I mean, I pay attention. I'm what passes for an educated guy these days. I earned my Citizenship in the Community, Nation, and World Boy Scout Merit Badges. I took my required high school government class.. What's more, I've perused all our foundational documents, even stuff like the Federalist and Anti- Federalist papers.. I've "read all about it" - but I still do not understand why Congress has to write two versions of the same law, one for the House and one for the Senate.. Whose vote finally matters more, and how they finally reconcile any differences and conflicts between the two houses? How precisely does a bill finally become law, dammit?

Oh, D'yoh! That's write! When the President finally signs it! Boo' yah. I'm not Trivia Pursuit Ninja Master for nuthin.'

One of the reasons I'm so pissed off and fed up lately, is I've begun to despise Americans. Our press.. Our brain dead public.. All the pathetic *ssholes who are disrupting those health care info meetings, yelling that Obama is a Nazi.. I mean. Come on. Please, enough "free speech," already. If you cannot process that this process is being hijacked (yet again) by the Insurance and Pharmaceutical Industries, and other vested interests like the AARP and AMA, who will do whatever they need to do to screw the rest of us, so as to maintain their advantages under the current boondoggle of a system that is melting down before our faces.. Then you people are utter tools, being manipulated by the likes of Beck and Limbaugh, who are lying propagandists for the rich and powerful..

Please, someone please.. Lobotomize me, too.. No. Nooo. I just can't take it anymore.


Let me spell this out: Anyone who thinks Obama is a Nazi or a Communist is a f*****g retard.

You need to shut up. And actually read something other than the Rush Limbaugh Newsletter.

You might start with this. The Servile State.

Complicate your mind a little bit, already.


Because words like Nazi and communist mean very particular, and horrific things.

Nazis were people who exterminated millions of people for very specific "ideological" reasons having to do with racial theories and stuff.. Obama, last I checked, is not advocating that. Even you count his abortion policy, which is indeed about exterminating millions of people for "ideological" reasons, he's still not technically a Nazi, because his "ideology" is very different than that of Adolf Hitler.. But if you insist on being intellectually sloppy, at least be consistently sloppy and please start calling people like Bill Maher, Jesse Ventura, Condoleeza Rice, Bill Clinton and half the rest of America "Nazis" too.

I say until Obama starts advocating we march on Moscow, lay off calling him a Nazi. Can we all please agree on that?


Anyhoo.. Now let's talk about the word "communism."

In economic terms, communism is the abolishment of private property.

This is also not what Obama is suggesting.

Indeed, Obama and the Democrats are in the thrall iof Wall Street Bankers, just like the Republicans are. Google Obama Goldman Sachs Campaign Donations and then add Matt Taibbi , for the all the details..


What I'm suggesting, is that what Bo Bama wants (if understand what is happening correctly) isn't even really in the bald sense, socialism.

I would define socialism as control through direct ownership of the means of production by the state. You know, the outright nationalization of heavy industry, to be controlled directly by state bureaucrats. Coal mines, steel mills. That sort of thing.

You could, however, argue that any regulation of markets - that is the distribution, and exchange of goods and services - by the community as a whole, through the agency of the state is a type socialism.

In which case, you can call Obama a socialist, if you insist.

But then, for consistency's sake, you'd have to do the same to every American president since at least..

I dunno, George Washington.

Yeah.. By your logic, both Bushes, Reagan and Lincoln were all socialists.

So this, again, is an unhelpful and meaningless distinction, being used merely as an epithet to shut down rational thought and discussion.


Remember that George W. Bush who advocated the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act? Which funnels massive amounts of Federal monies into the Pharmaceutical companies' pockets? This seems to be more or less the same type of thing that Obama is advocating, but for the rest of the health care industry..

The reason the insurance industry is squealing is that they are afraid that Obama will succeed in breaking up their very effective cartel, and force them to insure everyone. This would cut substantially into profit margins. They're also scared that he may hamper the sort of collusion that they and the hospital system are engaged in, where they inflate prices unnaturally, and gull us all.. Notice how there are two price systems at most hospitals? The prices the insurance companies pay, and then the prices that the uninsured pay?


Hilaire Belloc, in The Servile State, predicted all of this. He said - and anyone who thinks about this will see it's true - that there are great similarities between true socialism (state control of the economy, where most decisions governing production and distribution are made by a handful of usually unelected bureaucrats) and advanced, late stage unregulated capitalism, where capital (investment wealth, i.e., the production and distribution of goods and services) is controlled by a very small number of "private" individuals.

In both cases you have a privileged class of people in control of most wealth, and massive inefficiencies and imbalances in the market place.

Unregulated capital creates cartels and monopolies, see. It begins to suck all wealth unto itself, into the hands of the people who already control a lot of it.

That means the billionaires become the ones who are in control, because wealth is power. To be truly free, people need to have at least a modicum of wealth sufficient to afford food, shelter, medicine and education, and then the time free of drudgery to enjoy it all.. To engage in leisure, which would include things like the free time read about issues, go to public meetings and demonstrations, and write political representatives.

Which is to say that a truly free people must guarantee (by way of commonly accepted mores, customs and rules, even laws) that the powerful - both the government and the rich - be constrained, and that wealth be spread as widely and generously amongst the entire populace as possible..

Otherwise, you end up with most people in a state of servitude, unable to act freely. Either economically or politically.

Again, read Belloc's Servile State.

See, it's like this:

When you allow the wealthy to begin "deregulating" the market place, they do things like set the Federal Reserve interest rate (the rate the Fed rents the money at to banks) at around 2 and 3% for years, and then go and overturn all usury laws, enabling them to lend that same money to the public for rates up to 40% - you know, like the rate on your credit card. Even a "good" one charges 9%. Most far more than that.

They also do things like play games with things like the housing market.

We're so servile in our thinking as a society, that we don't even see that things like the housing bubble are the banks and stock brokers raping us, financially.

Unregulated insurance companies set the rules so that they can refuse anyone who is or is likely to get sick. Then, they also often drop you when you do get sick. They also collude by setting their prices amongst themselves, which in a cartel environment like exists now, can get pretty high.

Most of us who are insured, are insured by our employers. We don't see the bills. And bigger businesses negotiate in terms of economy of scale.. Try buying insurance as an individual, without that "cartel" benefit, the power that our lords financial have when dealing with one another.. The prices tend to be a bit higher for the little guy.


All of this is simply to say that rules set by the state, governing the market place are not, in my terms, socialism. Indeed, in a truly democratically controlled state, such rules are generally the product of a true popular consensus.

A consensus that includes little people without a lot of money, like me.

And virtually all of my friends and family. Most of whom control far less than a million dollars.


Anyway, here's a final suggestion:

If we want to get angry about something, and start yelling at people, why aren't we demanding the abolishment of K- Street? Demand the end to all professional lobbying. Forbid all campaign contributions. Give free media and public funding to candidates. Create websites where candidates can communicate fro free, and directly, with the public.

Then, agitate to forbid all earmarks in Congressional legislation.


We could also talk about constraining the courts, and weakening the power of the presidency, and then making the legislative process more interactive, concise and transparent.

You know, I would personally really like to understand what's going on..



Know what I mean?



---

Editorial Note

Re- reading the prior post, I realize that if you if you don't know the people involved, you may miss that I'm grotesquely exaggerating certain things here, for the sake of attempted comedic caricature.

For example, neither of my beloved brothers are, or ever have been superficial materialists. Nor were they ever thugs. Richie did mouth off to some small town cop in a bar bathroom once, and the results were apparently a bit unpleasant.. Other than that, I don't think he's ever beaten up, or been beaten up by anyone..

As for the people I suffered through high school with, they are indeed mostly now overweight, and compared to Italians, poorly dressed. Going to high school with them was pretty annoying overall, and most of them had no compunction getting their digs in back in the day.. I'm still harboring some residual negativity. I wouldn't go so far as to say I disdain them.. No. I actually have more or less fond feelings for the lot of them in the abstract.. It's just that when I was in high school I always wanted to do what I've since done and am doing now, and being forced to spend four of the putative "best years of my life" trapped in a brick and concrete box with them, playing idiotic reindeer games, was one of the least pleasant things I've ever experienced. I would like to say that I grew from the experience, but on the whole that would be a lie. I think more that in so far as I am bitter or cynical (and I am a bit of both) it has quite a lot to do with the formative experiences I had there, then. In so far as I am f****d up, I think it would be utterly fair to blame it on them.

So the fact that the girl I dated this summer is prettier than most of them now, is a point of no small satisfaction. Bringing it up may be small, but it still makes me laugh.

But then, I'm annoyed with Stefania, as well. Just slipping into a relationship with her like I did was unwise, and while it was amusing and pretty much problem free in the usual sense, I'm left now realizing that I betrayed my own emotions, and distracted myself spiritually.

So I'm annoyed with myself, too..

I hope that the stress lines in my emotional life may be evident in the things I've written on this blog.. And that maybe some of you might have some words of wisdom for me.. It's damned frustrating, being on the whole happy, having been able to fulfill so many dreams, yet to be frustrated in the final sense of vocation..

The story of Edith (the PMF) is just the culminating example. I still haven't processed that experience. In a way, it's not over, because I'm still seeing her every day. It's dead, and I need to leave. Until I have, I won't be able to clear the static.

I'm unsure now, really for the first time in my life, how much I can really trust my own heart. It's not a good feeling.


Anyway, the so the last post was flawed.

Where I was consciously attempting a sort of snarky but fond parody, I may actually seem more sarcastic, and somewhat embittered, I think? I don't know.

Three last things: The parts mocking myself are all pretty much unembellished.

And my algebra teacher, Bob Keeb was my favorite teacher of all time.

And despite what my attempted punnery may seem to imply, I was a rank tee- totaler in high school and never got drunk, much less high. And I was never suicidal, either. It's only the retrospective memory of a certain ... droning eternally away at his marker board (poor guy was allergic to chalk dust) that now evokes idle hyperbolic fantasies involving me plunging out of third story windows, into the maw of the shop woodchipper humming conveniently positioned below.. Being utterly stoned in that scenario merely adds a certain extra nihilistic je ne sais quoi to the reverie..


Ah, yeah.. Well. There you have it.


Now you see why I later went into teaching..



---

Gucci, La Mia Piccola Italiana & Me..

Stefania just called me. For the forth time since she left in July. I've called her once.

Hmmm..

I think she likes me..


And I guess I'm flattered. I was just last night perusing the photos my old classmates took at our 20th high school reunion, three weeks ago, and even though La Mia Piccola Italiana is three years (!) older than me, she's still hotter than any of the girls I used to have such vicious crushes on.

(Who nearly all spurned me back in the day of course, and by the way) ..

She was a more beautiful than any of them then, too. I've seen the pictorial evidence, circa 1987 ..

Ah, the perverse irony. They've all gone and become matrons on us. Stefania, though a tad worse for the wear, is still pretty trim. Pretty attractive, all told. For a Latin Teacher, with a PhD earned studying renaissance manuscripts, you might call her smokin.'

And she definitely has more style.. You'll never catch her in anything amorphous.


But then, she's Italian.

Whereas we Mainers have never been known for our haute couture..

But we're not utterly incorrigible. Even if most of my old classmates now seem beyond all hope and care..

My brothers have charted a course free of the wilderness, for example.. They're both gone urban sophisticate, s'habiller bien comme il faut.. True inspirations, both of them.


But it didn't used to be this way..


Ah, I was thinking just now how about my brother Matt used to dress when he was in high school and college..

I'm not sure I can paint an adequate mental image with mere words.. Those of you who were actually there can picture it for yourselves.. If you haven't involuntarily suppressed the traumatic memories, that is..


There was a mullet involved. I think it was about two feet long at one point.

But don't think Matt didn't have style - Oh no, his was anti- style reinverting the paradigm, reordering the molecular structure of the mind.. warped aesthetic (ergo moral) genius.. Think blousy sherbet orange tie- died cotton pants, black leather boots, tank tops, biker jackets, all topped by that mullet, and a mousse spiked flatop..


I say, words can't describe..


Let's just put it that he has such rank charisma and confidence that he basically somehow managed to pull it all off.. I'm not saying he looked good, only that it was good..


But if you weren't actually there to see it, you'll never imagine, yet alone believe it.


It was the eighties and early nineties, young ones. Back to the Future, Use Your Illusion, Smells Like Team Spirit, S**t Like That .. Miasmic, hanging all tangy fetid in the air ..


And we lived it. Sucked marrow dripping from lips tongue and bone.. Epically catastrophic, yet still epic, ye dig?


Ah, were those ever the days..


Matt was unsurpassed.. But both my brothers pushed the sartorial envelope far harder than I ever did, even then..


Rich had this great head of blond hair, to make most women envy.. He wore leather jackets and black s**t kicker cowboy boots.


It's hilarious to me now, how things have turned out, really.. You never would have thought back then that Groody, that crazy kid who thought he was the redneck reincarnate second coming of James Dean crossed with Jack Kerouac, whose highest inspiration in life was Slash..

Who was so psychotically deranged n' courageously stupid he'd pick novelty fights with cops in between scrapes with frat boys and townie red neck hooligans..


Has now grown up so utterly bourgeois respectable.


Just how respectable? Well, he's exceptionally well married, has two kids, lives in suburban D.C., owns a shiny new SUV, and works at a tony private school for the elite..

(get this)

As a freakin' guidance councilor.


I S**T you not.


He's going to be a private school headmaster soon, just like our dad. But it's supposed to be the oldest son that gets named junior, and ends up the biggest chip of the old block, right?


Har har. Not. Me.

Me porte como quien soy, como gitano legitimo..


Yet, I started off with such comparative - albeit slightly blighted - "promise" ..


For example, unlike one of my my brothers, I was never expelled (Matt was twice), and only ever got suspended once.


For whistling on the sly in study hall.


Madge Philpot, Phys Ed Teacher, used her bionic power to sleuth me out ..


Then, I blithely blew off the resulting detention four times.


Because I'm hip like that.


No.

Actually, it was due to the fact I'm such a space cadet and had (umm) "other pressing after school priorities."

Such as X- Country Practice and Latin Club to attend to.

So I kept on forgetting. They kept on doubling the stupid punishment.

It just never occurred to me to go, you know? I never imagined they'd do anything, and when they idiosyncratically went n' actually did, I was so stunned..

Ah, the gnashing wheels of high school justice! So bitter, so capricious cruel!


When Dirk Sullivan, Vice Principal, our sauve handsome banjo playing Master of Discipline (and honestly and very ironically, one of the few faculty at my high school that I actually liked, and of only four or five who seemed to really like me) came to the classroom door that morning during first period AP US History to boot my *ss, he looked sheepish about it, and actually apologized to me..



I went home and laid curled up all day on the couch in an anguished trance, with an upset stomach..


What was ever f*****g wrong with me? A free day off, peeps. Why didn't I freaking enjoy myself?

Why did I take it - them - all so seriously? The entire process was such a sham, and I let way too much of it - the social pecking order of who was "cool" - the vacuously hoary, ploddingly petit bourgeois rotary chamber commerce club jock ethic of the faculty - stress and get to me..


There were a few brief moments of deliciousness, though..

Those boneheads were shocked - into incredulity, a few of them to the point of resentment - when I pulled a National Merit Scholar Commendation on that stupid PSAT test.. 'Cause I was such the underachiever, see. Ranked 50 out of a class of 114 ..

"But dudes, you know that was due to you chumps using an an unweighted average?"

Yeah, that's it. That's my alibi. I took nearly all AP classes as an upperclassman, less three foreign languages..

And, you know, I really did have better things to do than all that Algebra homework ..


You mean you won't round up a 69.47% average? Because I only turned in 33% of the homework? Gee, Bob. Summer school? Oh, really?

Can you give me that hi pot noose, expotential square, Bob ..?


Thanks for all the extra insight into parabolas.

Saved my life, multiple occasions.


Har har. Good gracious. I'm definitely homeschoolin' kids.



But whatever am I carrying on about here? Wowzer, Charlie..



Well one of my points is that *I* should rightly be Master of Suburbia.. Claimin' prime nocte neighborhood droit du seignuer, burning 12 mpg, laying astroturf lawn, whatever, all that ..


But I'm become the Misanthropic Bohemian Travelin'Gypsy Anarchist, instead..

Oye.

"Woe, Whatever happened? Wherever did he go astray? How could he betray his native ethos, so? Oh.."


Yeah, it's all a sacred mystery to me, too..



Anyway, my overarching point here is that life is so, so sweet. We thought we'd have to have ol' Groody committed at one point, and now he's a pillar of middle class respectability.


I laugh. What else?


For things have truly changed..


Dr. Matt, he's long since become the quintessence of mature taste, and style. He's literally gone all GQ on us. He's a guidance councilor, too, by the way. But that's not so funny. I can't laugh at something so obscene.


Seriously. I'd blanked that fact out, until now. He's actually doing it in a really really interesting way, but I won't out that here. But he is, still, in essence, a guidance councilor..

And tissue of the time space continuum remains still intact.


As for Groody, he's actually sporting fine Italian rags these days.. No Joke. JD keeps him exquisitely well haberdashered and groomed.



I vowed I wasn't going to do this again. But I just can't help myself. You, you hearty few, who've managed to read this far, must be asking what the hell all this has to do with La Mia Piccola Italiana & Me..


Rich is wearing the Gucci, see. I hope that much is clear.


(Am I making anyone besides myself laugh, here? I mean, I'm crackin' myself up..)



Actually, it's more than that..


One of the reasons I'm not particularly pleased with Stefania is that she would give me grief over my clothes..

When, ironically ( so many ironies in this life, c'est presque insupportable.. ) enough, I was buying new clothes to try and please her.


I mean, check out this:





This is what I was wearing this morning, before she called.. I mean, dig it.. What's not to like?


But Stefania, if she were here and laid eyes on me wearing this, would probably seize up and keel over in a fit of Mediterranean apoplexy..


So, mulling this, I decided to change..





This is what I've on, now.. To me, it's stylin'..

I mean, look at the shades of green! Think theological virtue of hope, ladies!

Also note that I've gone and sprung for an actual Swiss time piece (also in green) -

Uh, albeit only a Swatch.. But still, that's Swiss, byatches.


So, I get pretty pleased with myself..


Until La Mia Piccola Italiana starts getting all snooty on me, and suggests I start wearing Gucchi and Prada and jack whatever have ye. So I'll be presentable in front of all her amici in Cagliari.. Actually, she's got a list of tailors that's a bit more sophisticated, I just can't pronounce any of their damned names..

Not that I can even pronounce Gucchi. Goo Chee? Guch aye?


Go put cher cooch up yer brown eye.. How's that?


I told le petit moineau fou about all this, and she was like

"Gucchi, qu'est- ce que c'est ca?"


I laughed, and was like, Edith, that's why I love you. Thanks.


Thanks for being an oblate.


So, anyway..


That's what I'm talking about folks..


If you can't beat 'em, maybe you oughta join 'em. Maybe it's time for me to go all GQ, too...


I dunno. What say you?? Wisdom, insight hereby solicited.


---

I'm Either Losing My English..

Or Going Soft in the Head..

Maybe both at once.

That last post had to be revised about four times, and if I re-read it again, I'm sure I'd find something else wrong with it. I horrify myself - gross misspellings, missing helping verbs, utterly reversed word order (multiple adjectives following nouns!! Ach, je suis presque devenu un maudit Francais, qui ne peut pas parler son propre langue.. zut sacre blue je suis nul alors.. ) and idiotic malapropisms like "bear headed" ..

Yeah, let me tell you I saw this bear headed Muslim girl the other day..

Good Gracious Lord. Please. Stick a fork in me, flip me over.. I'm so done.


---

Ramadan Kareem, Tous.. [revised, per usual]

So, the Islamic scholars have all done their calculations like they do every year, and just as expected, yesterday was the first day of Ramadan for the year 1430 of the Muhammadan era. This means that most of the Muslim world is fasting and napping from sunup to sundown, and feasting and praying throughout the night. It's a really intense time in places with a lot of Muslims, like Cairo.

I loved it, when I was there.. I did not keep the fast myself, but a lot of Christians I knew there did, I guess because they wanted to participate in the moment and have the full cultural experience.. Me, I ate like a Catholic, because that's what I am. I did, however, participate in the feasts breaking the fast, and witness some of the prayer.

Things during the day in Cairo during the fast are less hectic, because as I say, people do not exert themselves as much. Again, many people nap most of the day, so everything slows down quite a bit. But then, at dusk (when the imams cannot distinguish a white from a black thread in natural light, or so I've been told) they sound the chow call. That's the cue for everyone to go home to their families and eat like fools.

The streets instantly become deserted.. It's really strange, seeing a normally cacophonous place like Cairo go so abruptly and utterly calm. A bit eerie, really. But as night falls, and a couple hours pass, they finish their familial feasts and come out in great crowds. And the party begins. Being Muslims, there is no public inebriation, but there's still this great carnival atmosphere, throughout the night until dawn.

The really committed Muslims tend to go to the mosque and pray special series of prayers all night long.. I think they try to chant or read the entire Quran throughout the month.. I never saw this myself, only going to the mosque on a few occasions for the regular calls to prayer..

I should add that the reason that Muslims fast and celebrate Ramadan (which is one of the months in the traditional Arabian/Muslim calender, which is a lunar calender, which is why the month migrates through the Gregorian calender which is arranged according to the solar year) is because the first verses of the Quran were revealed to Muhammad during the month. And like so many things Muslim, the practice is apparently in imitation of earlier established Christian and Jewish practices. I think that there's actually a hadith that supports this idea, where the Prophet himself associates fasting during Ramadan with the Jewish fast at Yom Kippur..

Anyway, there is naturally a rich popular culture surrounding celebration of Ramadan.. Special food, popular Ramadan songs are sung, and there are special television series that people watch.. Much like all the special customs - carols and holiday specials - that surround Christmas and Easter in the West..

I just went online, and mucked around a bit to find some things that give a flavor of what Ramadan culture is like. Obviously, I don't know what all of this means, in precise cultural terms.. All I can say is that there is this vast world of Muslims celebrating out there, and when I lived with them doing it, it really moved me.

There's loads of stuff I saw like this video, which strikes me as very human and cute, but also a little weird. A little too obviously didactic, for my anarchically poetical Catholic tastes.. You'll see what I mean.

(There's a bit in French at minute 1:15, and then another bit in English about minute 2:00.. )



And then there's a lot of stuff like this bit from Syria, which may overturn some of your preconceptions about Muslims. Go to the middle of the clip, about minute 2:00, where the headbangers kick it:




I find all of this fascinating and compelling.

Which is to say that I really enjoyed wandering the Cairene streets at three and four in the morning, often with my Muslim friend from AUC, Muhammad, and seeing people out eating, talking, and playing games (cards, soccer, etc.) until dawn.. One of my favorite experiences, there.


Anyhow, yesterday I was downtown Fribourg. I walked by this young woman in hejab, sitting with a baby stroller on a bench curbside on the sidewalk. She was very pretty, obviously Arab, wearing one of those chic multicolored hejabs that frame a girl's face and throw it into stark highlight. I actually really dig a pretty girl in an interesting hejab. It's exotic, gives her this weird mystery and power, and (like I say) throws so much emphasis on her face.. Like so many things about the Muslim world, I've come to understand that things like the hejab that so many Westerners see as wholly negative, are often in practice about more than what many of us would assume .. Like for example that the hejab is somehow merely about "repressing" women - Cultural practices such as the wearing hejab are all often a lot more complicated, ambiguous and fascinating than that.


For example, I've had many (as in virtually every girl I knew at AUC who wore hejab that I discussed the topic with, which is to say roughly a couple dozen very smart and educated) Muslim girls would tell me that for them wearing hejab is a feminist act in that it keeps them from so easily being sexualized and objectified. They'd also speak of it as being a act of political and religious activism.. Because unlike men, they cannot be confused in public for anything other than committed Muslims. By wearing the hejab they're representing for their faith.. Anyway, when I was there, it seemed that most of the women at AUC who wore hejab were doing it freely, because only maybe a fifth of them did.. Most of them apparently from conviction; they'd tell you so pretty eloquently and forcefully when you asked.

That's not to say that that's anywhere at near generally the case in Egypt, where families can be pretty totalitarian and controlling, or that the hejab means the same thing to everyone.. Ask an educated secular Turkish Muslim like my sister in law Candan what she thinks of veiling, for example, and you'll usually get a very different point of view on the question, believe me you..

(In fact, if you unwisely insist on arguing in favor of hejab with JD, you'll quickly come to understand it's never wise to pick a fight with a Turk - Like Churchill discovered a Gallipoli - Please, for your own sake, trust me in this..)

As a further aside on the issue of the hejab, I was told by many Egyptians that in Cairo before 9/11, less than half the girls on the street would be wearing hejab. But that at the beginning of the Iraq War, that all changed. When I was there a few years ago, if you saw a girl bare headed it was almost always sure that that girl was either a foreigner or a Coptic Christian.. In the near vicinity of AUC or in Zamalak (the relatively rich heart of Cairo), many female Muslim students (who were mostly wealthy and secularized) would go about uncovered.. But for the most part seeing an unveiled Muslim girl in other parts of the city was rare.. Which is one of the many reasons I think our foreign policy these last eight years has had many more unfortunate and unintended consequences that we most of us understand..

Anyway, when I saw the particular aforementioned girl in hejab yesterday in Fribourg, I was suddenly inspired. I tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around, and shot me a surprised and wary glance.

"Ramadan Kareem!" I said.

This literally means something like "Generous Ramadan" or "May your Ramadan be Blessed."

She stared at me. It took her a few seconds to process.

"Ramadan Kareem à vous aussi," she finally said.

I smiled, and walked away.


That encounter kind of made my day.



---

I'm exhausted..

Things are winding down here.. We have a final meeting on Wednesday to resolve some final issues having to do with the project. Between now and then, I have a sizable bit of work to do, so as to be prepared..

After that meeting, I'm going to leave. I'm going to take the train, I think.. Maybe the bus, I haven't decided, but I definitely want to see the land as I go .. To Dubrovnik or Split. I'm going to spend at least three days at Medjugorje. Then, I will head for Istanbul. I want to see the Phanar. And then, if I finally have time, I may go to Ephesus via Izmir..

Izmir was my family's home when we lived in Turkey. I've not been back in over ten years. It would be nice to see it, again.

I will finish at Meryemana, İnşallah.

If I make it that far, I'll have to fly back to Geneva to connect to my flight home..

Note that I've turned off the blog mix.. No more noise.. I'm going to try to be less stream of consciousness, less deliberately provocative, a bit more focused for the finale, here. Several people have commented lately that they think I've been writing well. I'm glad they think so. I haven't felt that I am.. See, there's no process, here. I'm basically writing off the cuff.. Not even revising or even proofing until after I publish, and then I usually only fix my grievous errors, and often not even those. And I think that in most of my entries, it shows pretty obvious..

The last couple days I've been thinking that I may continue writing online.. But in a more focused and somewhat less facilely personal fashion.. It may be time for me to write about the first and final things.. those things that I spend most of my energy thinking and praying about..

If I do, though, I'll need to do it in a much more disciplined way.. So as to say it all well.. Whether that means a new website, and more or less retiring this one, we'll have to see..

This question is one of the things I'll be bringing with me to Medjugorje. It will be clear there, what I will do.


So, again, keep me in your prayers.. If anyone has any particular intentions they would like me to bring with me on my way, let me know. I'll be praying for all of you, in any case.


One last housekeeping note:

I have put a bunch of pictures up on my facebook account. Most of them were not posted here, for reasons of privacy. If you want to check them out, friend me there if you haven't already.


Oh, and one more thing. A couple people seem worried that the petit moineau may have broken my heart.. But the truly cruel thing is that she didn't. Because she couldn't. It was all emotionally intense, and in the end exhausting, sure. And I say that I was in love with her, because, well, for me love is a choice, and I chose to love her.. And it was all epic in its small way.

But the terrible, frustrating reality is that I may not ever be able to be so vulnerable as *that* - vulnerable enough to risk brokenes - and instead of that merely being a strength (which I suppose it is) it also has begun to feel like a type of curse..



---

Backstory: Fete Dieu/Corpus Christi

The Feast of Corpus Christi, June 11th, is one of the feasts of Fribourg. (Another being the Feast of St. Nicolas on December 6th.. )

There are parades and much pageantry. Some fellows dress up in archaic military uniforms. I ran into a few old fellows, enactors for a 19th Century Fibourgeois Artillery Battery. They had just fired off their cannon, as I was passing by..

And then, they began to sing.

And I filmed it:





Just how sweet was that?


---

Perhaps the First of a Penultimate Series of Posts.. [slightly revised, corrected]

This Blog May Have Almost Run It's Course..

I think I may blog through the end of my planned pilgrimage, and then pull the plug.

There are a few more posts that I may make, though, to round up things here in Bourguillon..


I've been thinking about the last year parmi les Suisses, lately.. I thought I'd type some of my thoughts out.. As I maybe bring this to a coda..

Blogging's been interesting. The point and purpose has been to share with everyone back home what living here this year has been like.. Given I know that some twenty people have been reading this thing off and on, I think it achieved that goal..

Even despite the fact that I've only blogged part of the story.. Maybe only 10% of it.

There were a few reasons for that. One was I realized pretty quickly that Europeans generally place a much higher value on privacy than Americans do. One, that in my opinion, verges on a type of paranoia.. You'll notice that through March or April I posted a lot more pictures and video of people here than I have lately. That's because until that point nobody here realized that the blog existed. When they began to find out, they almost universally asked me not to post anything about them on it..

One fellow (that'd be you, FD, you wanker, if you ever get around to reading this) basically threatened to hack the site if I ever posted anything that he didn't like.. He also sort of threatened to sue me.. Which I all took in good humor, but also to heart.. Because even if FD is paranoid, I also happen to love the guy. I spent a better part of my spring hanging out with him. If you study the blog, you'll notice that I've flipped the bird at him a couple times these past few months, because he's kept me from posting some pretty funny stuff.. But I put up a couple of more or less innocuous things, anyway, just to see if I couldn't piss him off..

So, since he isn't the only one to request I not post about them, I've had to restrict things quite a bit, which has been pretty annoying, because I've (as I say) been taking some good pictures and videos that I would have loved to share. But for the most part, I've felt constrained by their wishes, and not posted any of it..

Another factor has been that in the beginning, things were a little more exotic for me than they are now.. Despite having lived abroad for some four years already, one prior year here in Switzerland, and in other places as diverse as Mexico, Turkey, Egypt, I'd always been living in community with other Americans before.

This was the first experience I've had being the lone American, and totally immersed in a non- English speaking community.. The first year I spent here, I made very few Swiss friends, because it's tough to break into the community here. We Americans were left more or less to our own resources, socially. This is because the Swiss can evince a sort of timidity and insularity that verges on xenophobia, and tend not to be particularly open to foreigners. As most of you are aware, at most American universities, an invitation to a party is a relatively easy thing to come by, even if you're a complete stranger. You can usually crash multiple parties a weekend, and nobody will object. Here, it's much more difficult to socialize, since most parties are small intimate affairs, almost always invitation only. That's to say that last time I was here, we Americans were more or less frozen out, for the most part, at least until near the end of the year, when we finally began to really get to know people..


This experience, in Bourguillon, has been completely different. I was automatically in the middle of the community. And only half them are Swiss, the vast majority of them from Canton Valais. And Valaisians are in my experience easily the most passionate and gregarious sort of Swiss. Then, most of the rest of the folks here are French. And that meant that things were very interesting, very quickly. For the first few months they were constantly surprising me. Hence all those "anthropology" posts I made at the beginning..

The last four or five months though, I've settled in. And things no longer seem so odd to me, anymore. These people are more or less my own, now. Normal. Not so bloggable.


Finally, the primary dramas of the last six months have been professional (which I obviously cannot divulge the details of publicly) and romantic. I've alluded to all that nutty romance many times here. There are a couple of you that I told more of the tale to..

But both because it was all too intensely lived to blog, and because I respect the privacy of the people here too much to spill it all in an open forum like this, I've kept the funniest parts to myself..


Let me just finally say this, now, as a sort of summary after action report..


For four to five years, as most of you know, I've been more or less out of the loop romantically.. Too wrapped up in other things, distracted by all the meta- narrative, so to speak..


It's really good to be back.

But true to form, I had to make my come back with my own particular flair.

Which is to say that I uncharacteristically went whole hog and truly fell for, then proposed to this girl. Which, again, as most of you know, is a first for me.. I've always been too wrapped up in my lame "I oughta be a priest" Catholic boy melodrama; and despite having known four or five fantastic girls who might have married me if I'd asked them, I've never felt the imperative..


Until I met the aforementioned petit moineau fou.

Who is an oblate.

Now, that's not quite like falling in love with a nun (because an oblate is canonically free to marry) but it's almost like that.

So, when I realized I dug her bones, I was like she's gonna say no, but what the heck, why not? And so I asked her.

Ah, it was utterly beautiful. Just like in a cheesy love song, the world stood still. I totally floored her, she couldn't speak for about five minutes. When she finally found her voice, she didn't actually say no, instead kept on saying "it's not possible" - and since I knew *that* was bullshit (it was very possible, the question was whether she wanted to be with me, more than she wanted to be an oblate) a couple days later, I slyly asked her for her photo.

She gave it to me.

Heh heh.. I knew what that meant. I went for the jugular.


That's to say that she very quickly ended up in my arms. She couldn't help herself.. She came back a few times.


And so I asked her again. Behind the altar, in the chapel. At three in the morning.


It was so utterly crazy beautiful. This girl is, believe me, classic. Some of the things she said to me will be echoing in my head forever.

I can't tell you much more than she couldn't say yes, and there ensued a beautiful, yet exhausting, three month comedic drama.

At the end, I just had to let her go.


I guess what it came down to is that I'd fallen in love with the oblate, not the girl. Classic error, I'm a fool. See, if I was take her out of the Frat, she probably wouldn't be the same person. So, it's best to let her be.



And that's the gist of the rest of the story of the petit moineau fou.


When it all fizzled out in June, I was emotionally spent.


That's when I met Stefania. Who, on paper, probably would strike most of you as a much more rational choice for me.. Italian. Pretty. A Latin teacher. Doing post- doctoral work in comparative lit (Italian and English Renaissance dictionaries..) And because I was too weak to say no, I ended up hanging out with her for a month and a half.

And it was a big mistake. Not in any dramatic sense, it was all very amusing. She, par for the course, liked me more than I did her. Which was of course, flattering. But the thing is that it was a betrayal of my own heart. I was still in love with the petit moineau.

You know, I owed nothing to her. I'd let her go. But my heart was still..


You know how it is.


So, in a way, I wrecked myself.


Just as things were getting particularly stressful with the project. And just as I started to have to think about returning home.


So the last two months have been tough.


Which explains all the lame political ranting.


You know I do not care about any of that crap, really. There are a couple of you that I would like to beam with an empty beer can every time you say something really dumb like that Obama is a Marxist (no, dudes, if you insist on characterizing him in terms of late 18th and 19th Century economic thought, you'd have to say that he, like Bush and every other American President elected the last 100 years, is far more David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus, John Stuart Mill and Alfred Marshall, than Karl Marx; but let's forget it, that's all just technical static, and I guess I don't really give a damn.. Let's just call Bo Bama and each other dumb names, and then laugh it all off.. I love you all, forget I even brought any of it up..)

Just like that entire Jill Yablonski kick was just me having a little melt down.. I was just then in the middle of coming to the realization that Stefania was a big mistake, fishing for someone to rush to my defense I guess, and then annoyed that no one really did. All unnecessary, because I think the only person reading this who I actually give a fig about, and doesn't actually know me in person, is Nikki.. And the only reason I got pissed off at Jill (who when she was actually insulting me to my face, I found only mildly annoying, even occasionally rather amusing) was that I was reacting to Nik's very legitimate caution that I may in fact really be an axe murderer or something.. And so and went and made the situation even better by shooting my mouth off about Jill..


Not all that emotionally swift on the uptake. But that's how I roll.


Anyway, most of what I've been posting lately all's just sound and fury emanating from all this personal back story..


And from my own personal spiritual issues, which I really haven't felt up to delving into here.. Let's just say I'm heading to Medjugorje, and then maybe Turkey for many reasons.. It's been well since time to throw myself upon the Mercy of the Blessed Theotokos, for a long while now.


Well, it's been cathartic, if perhaps a bit rash and reckless, shooting my mouth online.. I'm itching for a good fight with someone who knows how to roll with the punches, like most of my family and friends.. But that's not how the Frat works.. They prefer to avoid confrontation, which I suppose means they're far closer to God than I, but that at moments like this I start to bat myself about, and end up punching myself silly..

Which is why I keep trying to get rises out of guys over stupid things like politics.. Writing about it all in a journal would be pointless..


Still, like I say, it seems it may be nearly time to shut this down.. I'm digging the sidebar mix, so I'll probably just slap a password on, and keep the site as personal jukebox..

Yep, I've just about run out of things to say..


So maybe I should just shut up, eh?



---

I'm Going to Medjugorje.

And then, maybe to Mount Athos and the Phanar. I have to finish my pilgrimage. I didn't know that meant Medjugorje. Until these last few days. But it's suddenly clear that I need to go to the heart of the things that have been destroying me these last ten years or so.

I need to be there, for myself. To see what need be seen.


Keep me in your prayers. I'll remember you.



---

Don't You Never Say That White Boys Can't Ever Jam...

This is how I'm stuck here, see..

Riding forever on the old TPF ..





Can anyone spare 2 Francs 30 Centimes? What ever will become of me?


Did he ever return? No, he'll never return.. And his fate is still unlearned..


Es tu, Charlie? Sic est. Yes.



---

And the River Opens for the Righteous..

The Song of the Day:




I"m really looking forward to coming home.


+++



Addendum, August 18th..



I keep saying that I want to come home, but I kept putting off buying the ticket. Why?


Why. I need to explain why this song's definitive..


I guess I'll just put the lyrics down, and let the words explain themselves.



---

I am a Patriot

Here covered by Jackson Brown, lyrics by Little Steven & the Disciples of Soul.


And the river opens for the righteous,
And the river opens for the righteous,
And the river opens for the righteous,
And the river opens for the righteous,
And the river opens for the righteous,
And the river opens for the righteous,
And the river opens for the righteous,

Someday..

I was walking with my brother,
And he wondered what's on my mind..
I said what I believe in my soul,
Ain't what I see with my eyes,
And we can't turn our backs this time.

I am a patriot, and I love my county,
Because my country is what I know.
I want to be with my family,
The people who understand me,
I've got nowhere else to go..

And the river opens for the righteous,
And the river opens for the righteous,
And the river opens for the righteous,

Someday..

And I was talking with my sister,
She looked so fine..
I said, "Baby, what's on your mind?"
She said, "I want to run like the lion,
Released from the cages,
Released from the rages,
Burning in my heart tonight.."

Yeah.

And I ain't no communist,
But I ain't no capitalist,
And I ain't no socialist,
But I ain't no imperialist,
And I ain't no Democrat,
But I ain't no Republican,
I only know one party,
And it is freedom..

I am, I am, I am..

I am a patriot.
And I love my country,
Because my country is all I know.

I want to be with my family,
The people who understand me,
I've got nowhere else to go..

And the river opens for the righteous,
And the river opens for the righteous,
And the river opens for the righteous,
And the river opens for the righteous,
And the river opens for the righteous,

Someday..




---

On Behalf of All the Retards Who Yet Draw Breathe..

Which is to say myself, as well as one of my best friends, Dale Weymouth:

I'd like to call your attention to the passing of one of the few Kennedys who refused to sell out. One of the very few who have actually kept the Faith.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver.

Not only did she refuse to sell, she struggled and railed against the satanic bastards who would have you believe that human beings unborn, or those born with physical or mental disabilities, live lives to be despised.

In the late sixties and early seventies, as most of the rest of her family was caving to the exterminators, she was instrumental in exhorting the US Catholic Bishops (that pusillanimous lot) to resist the new regime of death, by establishing National Right to Life, the seminal organization of the Right to Life Movement.

Then, she founded Special Olympics.

Now, in this new golden dawn in which 90% of Downs Syndrome babies conceived are aborted in utero, and as further prenatal tests are being developed so as to enable us to annihilate all the rest of those we may deem too imperfect to live, her witness shines.

A few years ago, Matt and I saw Dale run in the Special Olympics at the University of Maine, Orono. He ran some three races. He lost one of his shoes during two of them. He came in third once.. It was a ribbon and heart breaker.. We laughed, we cried..

We ate a lot of hotdogs.


I would just like to thank Eunice tonight for having gone to bat for Dale, and to ask you to pray for her.

Rest in Peace with the Master, Friend and Savior of All Humble Retards, Eunice.


---

And Now the Oblates have All Flown Back Home from Rome..

Once upon a time (one morning, not so very long ago) we were all at breakfast.. And we started talking about the names for different birds.. hibou, cisalpine, etc..

Then I noticed a little brown fellow hopping around outside, all plumed up plump in the morning chill, and chirping officiously.. A sparrow. I started to laugh, and pointed to him hopping and flying about outside..

What is that?

That’s a moineau, they said.

A moineau!

Hah! Perfect.. I laughed, and started to tease her, telling her how much she reminded me of that little bird. Like when she sings, her pitch is usually really good, her voice is so clear and distinct that it’s like a bird singing, and you can always pick it out in the crowd.. And when she gets amused or annoyed she plumps herself up ever so slightly, and warbles. (And when I say she plumps herself up, I saying that she does this with only 110 lbs on that ascetic little frame of hers) .. And she’s always hopping or skitting around, running around corners, busy with the next little oblate task she has..

So it was obvious. Genius.

I was like, is that bird named after a monk (un moine, in French) .. ?

And Edith was like, yes, because the bird’s small and brown and insignificant, just like a monk..

And I was like, only if you’re blind with no eyes to see. Because you know what Christ said about the humble: the little ones, the smallest of the small, the least of the least, the birds of the air? The little ones who have nothing else but him to depend on?

He may seem slight and insignificant in the eyes of the world, but he’s still really important to God in the only way that really counts.

Just like you, Edith. Exactly like you.

You’re un petit moineau. Le petit moineau fou.


And that’s how she got her name.


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These People Just Declared War on My Childhood

I just read something that I still haven't begun to process.

Most of you probably know that I'm a huge bibliophile. I really like to read, and I own a lot of books. I love them. As artifacts. I just like having them around.

I just read though, that Congress has taken it upon itself to ban all childrens' books printed before 1985.

Because they're considered a health threat.

No one can buy or sell them. Libraries are apparently supposed to throw a significant part of their collections, away. Parents are supposed to get rid of them.


You know, I've never before felt like this, never in my life heard of an American law that just made my head pop.


Like, hell no. No. No. No.


You can take us to war for no good reason. You can bankrupt us, and allow the bankers and stockbrokers to swindle us. You can overturn the posse communitatis, effectively revoke the Bill of Rights, and give the president quasi- dictatorial powers. You can destroy the health care system and give all our money to insurance companies.


Do all of that, and I'm probably still going to believe in the rule of law.



But you are not ever going to take my books away. You want to ban my old books? No. You're not touching them. Not when hell freezes over. That's one law that I am going to break, and break, and break. You've just pushed me over the line. Illegitimate. Unacceptable.


Unbelievable. Utterly unbelievable.


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Beware the Valaisian Wolves.

I was telling all you guys how when a cow gets killed, it's cause for national mourning, it makes the front page here in Switzerland.

Well, check this out. Dead sheep make page 1, too:



The caption says that the municipal government isn't going to play. They've gone to the Cantonal and Federal govenments, and they want permission to get that damn wolf.

Big news, folks.




See why I love Switzerland? No Bill O'Reilly or Keith Obermann here, guys. This is serious news. News you can use.

Watch out for wolves in Valais. Heck, in Maine all we got are coyotes. Switzerland sure is cool.

And people think nothing ever happens here..



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More On Afghanistan

Abu Muqawama, a former Army Ranger and now National Security pundit, fisks the inimitable former Army Colonel and Professor of International Relations at BU Andrew Bacevich on his take on the war in Afghanistan.

I post this, because I've been babbling about it all, and I think this is important.


Yada yada, you know.


Continuez, allez-y, y'all. That's Frenchy for Carry On.



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Vive la Suisse.

Switzerland was born in 1291, when the "Pacte Fédéral" was signed on the 1st of August by three first three cantons forming the country: Uri, Schwytz et Unterwald. All of them German speaking. On the 800th anniversary of this event in 1991 it was decided that the entire country would celebrate the date as a National holiday.

The Swiss, like Americans, shoot off a lot of fireworks, and build big bonfires, eat a lot, and drink copious quantities of frosty beverages.

I shot this video of the municipal fireworks in Fribourg, which lasted about a half hour. It was pretty cool:



Then, the people of Fribourg kept on shooting off their own fireworks until late into the night. Also pretty cool. Check it out:




Vive la Confederation, y'all.


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By the by,

Here's some excellent reporting on what is actually going down in Hamid Karzai's Afghanistan:

This was published this week, and is excellent.

And this was published last February, but is still relevant. It's about what Josh does. Like I say, our troops are no cowards. What they do is incredible, and they deserve our thanks. I still think 90% of our forces stationed abroad should come home. (As in just why exactly are we still defending Germany, South Korea and Okinawa when we're bankrupt?) But until they do, we should keep them all in our prayers, and thank them for what they do.


Now back to regularly scheduled programming. Isn't Switzerland cool?




Love my Cathedral. Isn't it beautiful?


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My 101st Post.

Today is the 54th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.




In three days, August 9th, we will all forget to commemorate Nagasaki.




I remember the day that I began my ideological meltdown. It was probably 1995. I was listening to Rush Limbaugh. Driving along the Kennebec south from Waterville, toward Winslow. Rush had his panties all in a bunch about the Smithsonian putting on an exhibition about the atomic bombings, which had made the scarlet sin of saying that the bombings were controversial, and for noting that a lot of Japanese were still unhappy with us for having vaporized some 150 thousand or so of them in the span of three days.

Rush found that controversy scandalous. Screw them Japs, you know. He did the utilitarian math for us on air, saying some millions of Americans would likely have died if we'd been forced to invade, because the Japanese were going to fight until their last grandmother took a bayonet through the grand-baby she was cradling on her breast and that that would have been an even bigger bloodbath..

I was thinking to myself, maybe so. But then again, maybe not. Because if they'd all had had such a great deathwish, why didn't they fight on, despite the bombs, anyway?

And maybe we could have achieved the same result dropping that bomb on a purely military target, like some Pacific atoll in the middle of nowhere, taken a cool film of it, then sent it to Hirohito and the Emperor, with the message that if they didn't surrender immediately, the next one would be planted atop their heads, in Kyoto or wherever.

I think that would have achieved the same result, less 150,000 deaths.

But then, I'm not a warplanner.


The thing that I do know is that I can't stomach people making jokes about mass homicide, as if it were funny. Which is what Rush started doing, then. I can't remember the punchlines, all I can say is that I stopped listening.

And I've never tuned in, again.


I had, until that point, really wanted to like Limbaugh. Because I thought that I was "conservative," thought (and still think) Clinton is a huge in our face shameless liar, and I was (and still am) against abortion... And since the National Review had called Limbaugh the "leader of the opposition," and since I oppose lies and abortion, I was like, I'm supposed to like this Limbaugh guy..

But that what he said day. I'm still astonished.

Call it ghoulish but necessary, if you want. It sure scared Stalin, which I think was Truman's actual goal. And Stalin being scared of us was a good thing.

But don't call it funny.


Fast forward some seven years later, to April, 2003. I'd just gotten out the Army, and was spending a lot of time sitting all queasy in front of my computer, following the breaking news on the war. I was not happy about it, and was worried about all my several dozen friends in the military who were in harm's way..

But nobody I love has yet been killed in Iraq..

I've only lost one friend, Khu Chay. His picture can be found a half dozen or so posts below. He was killed by a roadside bomb in Afganistan.


I knew enough about Iraq, having done a BA in Middle Eastern Studies and DLI/FLC ME I Arabic Basic, along with a lot more subsequent personal study, to know that what the people pushing the war were saying was nonsense.

They were lying to us.

The Iraqis, even if they ever had got a nuclear weapon, were no real danger to us.

(Nor is Iran or North Korea dangerous to us, by the way..)

We are never going to make a functioning "democracy" out of Iraq.

And all our "surgical strikes" in a crowded city like Baghdad with 500 to 2000 lb bombs were brutally killing a lot of normal (we could say "innocent") people.

I was becoming overwhelmed by it all.. I didn't know what to do. Most of my friends and family (except Matt), and 70% of my fellow citizens, were for the war. Many of them ecstatically so.

There were people running tractors over piles of Dixie Chick albums. Just because they'd called George W. Bush a twit. Like that wasn't their right to say, and like it isn't obviously true.

I was pretty upset about it all. I felt like I should do and say something, too. So I made some lame posters and put them up around Madison, Wisconsin. Which was one the few places in the country other than Berkeley, California, that was then actually polling against the war.

Very efficacious activism, that.

Just like when I go to pro- life marches and demonstrations, which I've done over a dozen times. It doesn't matter a damn bit.

Americans. We're really into death as a solution to our problems..


Anyhow, I was still torn though, in a way, because almost all of the people I had previously considered to be my political allies were all for the war.


Then this happened. And I snapped.


We took Baghdad, and the Iraqi National (Archeological) Museum was looted, right in front of our faces. And we did nothing to stop it.



When I heard about the looting of the museum, I went over to National Review Online, to their blog the "Corner" and read them all joking about it. They've since cleaned their archives apparently, because if you go here and search for references to "museum" between 03/01/03 and 06/01/03 you'll get a disjointed record of their discussion, with only a small fraction of the posts that they made then on the subject of the looting now left extant.

This is the only article on the subject that those jerks have left up. It's "not that bad," makes some lame ass*d comparison of Saddam with Mao, saying that Saddam was an untrustworthy custodian of those treasures, so it was actually better that they'd been stolen, because private collectors would take "real good" care of them, and they'd eventually end up in a museum in Huston in 50 or so years. How's that for a Freidmanite argument in favor of private ownership?

Those people are such vulgar twits.

I'm only going to say one thing in defense of Saddam Hussein, who was one of the few people on the planet more violent and thuggish than the crew over at National Review:

That Museum survived some 30 years of his regime, intact. It took our invasion to get a significant part of that its collection "liberated" to the benefit of rich aesthetes in places like Switzerland.

This is a assessment of what has happened to Iraq's archeological patrimony since the invasion, from the University of Chicago Archeology Department.

Ah, yes. Those jerks over at NOR. They're all sort of embarrassed, now, so the real stupid stuff they wrote then has all gone down the memory hole. Even "neo- cons" apparently have enough consciousness (I won't say conscience) to realize that chortling over the destruction of one of the most important museums on the face of the planet is in "rather poor form.."

Me, I would call laughing about the looting of an important museum utterly barbaric. As in Nazi barbaric. But I'm oversensitive like that.


And you know, nothing's changed.

We're being robbed by our bankers, now. Who blame the poor idiots who took loans that they (the bankers, the putative adults, who were supposedly the responsible ones, who were supposedly risking "their own" money, before it turned out actually to be "our" money) should never have made.

Our culture's on the skids, and we may be on the verge of total meltdown.


Our materialism turns out to have been only slightly more sophisticated than the communists. It only took twenty more years for us to reach the point of collapse, see.



Josh and Mikey: I just want to add that the other day I suddenly realized why you guys got upset about that Susan Sontag essay. It was the bit where she called people who paste people unable to fight back from 50,000 feet, cowards, right?

The thing is that criticism is legit. But you see, guys, that that's a criticism of the freaking Air Force. And we all know what a bunch of pansies most of them are. To be very clear: the pilots (like John McCain, who as we all know was shot down over North Vietnam, and whose son has been deployed with the Army in Iraq, much to his and his family's credit) who actually fly low enough to get shot at, and occasionally shot down, are not cowards.

Nor, Josh, is anyone like you and Khu, who actually puts themselves in harm's way, a coward.

I admire you all, immensely.


But like Susan says, courage is indeed a morally neutral virtue.

It took brass balls for the Wehrmacht and SS to march on Stalingrad, for example.

Nor do the Taliban strike me as cowardly. More like insanely courageous. Going toe to toe with the Red Army, and now us, takes some courage.. Which is one of maybe two positive things I can think of to say about them.

(The other is that I dig their groovy facial hair. Oh, three things. The turbans are cool, too. Very chic.)

Anyhow,

The question I have is whether the courage you guys have is being abused.


Whether our political leadership is taking you for granted. Whether they actually have a good (as in realistic) plan in Afghanistan.

Whether their goals (which are not articulated) can be accomplished. Whether those goals actually advance our national security..

I'd say that we'd probably do better having a much smaller footprint in Afghanistan. Leave just enough force there to keep Karzai from getting lynched, and then hunt the truly bad guys with special forces and Afghan allies like the former Northern Alliance.

Pull everyone else, home. Now.



But the bad guys are not why we're there. We're there because we're playing geopolitics with the Iranians, Russians and Chinese. Because the oil in Caspian region is too important to be left alone.


Which is cool, and everything. It's just not what they told us we went in there for..

Because now they tell us not to worry about Bin Laden.

Song of the Day:




I really dig the original song. No, I haven't forgotten. I just love how we conflate Iraq with al-Qaeda, when it's actually our buddies the Saudis and Pakis who are actually behind the bastards. But whatever, right. That song's video has been pulled off You Tube, incidentally. Seems old Darryl Worley finally woke up to the fact that he was being used as a propaganda tool by the Pentagon, and had all the official videos pulled. You can still hear live performances and cool covers like this, though.


Really good stuff. I love America. I really do. Even if most of us are ignorant and dumber than wooden posts. Our naivete, while pathetic, sure is touching.


So. Is it all (whatever it may be) still worth killing and dying for? Do we have a good plan? Does it even really matter?

Those are my only questions. Nobody at home really seems to care. I care too much.


Josh, if you get your *ss capped, I'm not going to be very happy about it. Especially if we abandon the mission in five to ten years. Which we very likely will.


But whatever, aye.


Audrey Santo is a patroness of this blog for many reasons. Nagasaki is one of them. Pray for her intercession and beatification.

Heck. I'm babbling and probably pissing all three of you who still read this, off.


I'll shut up now. Peace out, y'all.



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