November 22, 1999
Someone Else's Travelogue
When I first started these Budget Files, they were as much travelogues as much as anything else. Remember back when I was traipsing through Moscow, travelling through Russia, visiting Istanbul. Unfortunately, since I have returned to the US, the one thing I haven't done is travel anywhere (unless you call my hour-and-a-half bus ride to work and back travelling). And the following lack of travel stories in my Files are something that I miss a lot. Fortunately for me, and you, my adored readers, my buddy Brenda is travelling through Europe and Africa right now. I encouraged her before she left to write down her experiences and send them my way. I recently received the first installment of her travelogue. For all of you that have tossed their problems aside and just took off for an adventure, you will truly understand and empathize with the experiences she relates. And for those who just like a good story, read on. I am more than happy to give this Budget File to Brenda and her tales of wander. As I receive more updates on her adventures, I'll pass them on to you.
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Europe
The capacity for adventure seems to have augmented since Ibiza. The raver island offered a healthy population of freaks and dance clubs that open in the wee hours of the morning and don't really get going until around 4am. It was a place of little sleep. Greg rented a KTM 125 and we cruised around the island to another town called San Antonin. Stopped the bike in a random locale, wandered up to a locked door where the windows were taped over with paper and knocked, for some reason. Paco emerged first, a French tattoo artist speaking 6 languages traveling the world on his ink. Then there was Eden, his cute little son and also Florence the mom and piercer girlfriend wearing many things of every color. Eden played with our helmets while we all talked in French and English, convincing them that they wanted to go to San Francisco to work, not Miami, where they had an invitation. Perhaps we will see them again someday...
The next day, Greg traded the bike in for a bigger one, 650 SLR and we fell over about 10 minutes later on a slow turn in the sandy harbor. Nothing but a few flesh wounds. On the ferry back to Barcelona we met Daniel, an Australian touring Europe on his Triumph. Spent a few days in Barcelona with him walking around looking at architecture and it turned out he was headed to Paris as well. He had an extra helmet. After some debate and Ken and Greg vouching for my ability to lean and sit still, he agreed to take me on the back. Leathers from Daniel, jacket and gloves courtesy of Greg; they dressed me and I felt like I was a little kid going out into the snow. Ken and Greg fretted for a few minutes and took a photo and we were off. Some hours and a chain adjustment later, we were in the Pyrrines. These ancient mountains remind me of the sandstone cliffs of Wisconsin, strangely enough. It felt like an ancient place, like a place where man began. Riding on the back of a bike is meditative. Can't talk, can't move, all there is to do is look and think, think about anything besides the discomfort of not being able to move. (That bike is the most comfortable one I have ever traveled on though). I stopped wanting Mike this day. That is, of course, a whole other story of the mental journey taking place. Let it suffice to say it was a whole string of realizations, the first clear moments I have felt in quite some time. We tried to spend the night in Toulouse but all hotels were full so we ate Chinese and pressed on into the hill country of the wine region. Spent the night in an automatic roadside hotel. Just stick your credit card in the slot and it dispenses a key. The, um, nature of my relationship with Daniel changed that night somewhere midsleep. The next day zooming through the silence and smells of the French countryside, everything was contemplated, the nature of Mike grew even clearer and I felt free and happy to be alone finally. A peace was reached. Daniel lingered in Paris for a few extra days and then left for Amsterdam. We left for Egypt which is where I am now. Ken goes home, Greg stayed in the Sinai and I am finally really alone.
Cairo is the color of dirt. Dust, mud, sand and age lend everything the sickly hue of phlegm or mildew, accumulated debris. Crossing the street is a major enterprise. I was having some difficulty and a man walked up and said, "in the land of confusion you just close your eyes and pray for god's blessing" and promptly pushed me out into the street. There are lanes painted on some of the streets but this doesn't seem to phase them. They drive with about 2 inches of space between the cars, honking all the while, rarely stopping, weaving around the donkey carts, camels, pedestrians, horses, and all manner of things you find in the street here, rarely stopping. I think there are codes of honking. The cars communicate with one another as if they have a life of their own. This all looks rather fluid, like ballet, I noticed watching from my 9th floor hotel room. It is true I have yet to see an accident. So the pedestrians just wander out into this lane-less chaos and weave their way through the cars, trucks, buses and animal drawn things weaving around one another and you have to follow them. They will walk across 10 lanes of traffic like this, the freeway even, a square where 5 streets converge. Egyptians are very friendly. They are always touching you for emphasis. It's not just me, they touch the boys too. It is strange though because the authorities try to keep you away from the Egyptians. I suppose this is supposed to be protecting the tourist but it is quite annoying. I came to Egypt to meet Egyptians, among other things, and they get hassled and even jailed for talking with me. But more on Egypt later. I have yet to understand what is going on here. It's hard to think in all of this chaos.
So, what did I think of Europe? Paris is much cleaner than I remember, less homeless people, less random violence - or perhaps my 15-year-old eyes were less jaded and noticed more. The south of France, the Cote D'Azur was beautiful albeit dead. Old people and old dogs spending their days in the sun. Monaco was just plain weird. So quite and clean, sterile, full of exotic cars and men in expensive suits. Spain I found rather unfriendly and annoying although the architecture of Barcelona is unrivaled in the lands I have thus far traveled. Rural France, the Pyranees and hill country, was a bit scary, populated by the kind of people we would call rednecks in the US. They mumble unintelligible responses to yes/no questions and begrudgingly perform their jobs with twisted up faces. And Paris - I love Paris. I remember I wanted to live there one day.
Brenda
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Zdrastvuy johnnie b. !
With regards to your take on "Fight Club": you must be getting kinder in your old age Johnnie, I thought the film was a ridiculous piece of shayt, a waste of Ed Norton's considerable acting talent and a reaffirmation that the only thing pretty-boy Brad is good for is as masturbation material for teenage girls. Oh well, guess that's what you get when you let bean counters -rather then filmmakers- run studios.
I also disagree with your take on the film being about the emasculation of men, I think it's about a bunch of guys stuck in dead-end jobs who don't think they'll ever amount to anything. Only unlike the girlie-men who shoot up a Xerox office or a Seattle shipyard, these he-men decide to wreak havoc on society! Like I said what a ridiculous piece of shayt. And by the way... sure kids have been traditionally raised by dear-old mom, but dad played a crucial role as well. Dad was the role model, the instructor a boy would look too -as he matures into manhood- to teach him the meaning of healthy, positive masculinity. Perhaps if the morons in "Fight Club" had such dads I wouldn't have had to sit through over two hours of macho bullshit.
Just a thought!
Boris
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Until next time.
#35
December 5, 1999
News, Views, and Correspondence
BIG BUDGET PRESS NEWS!
Budget Press is proud to announce the publication of our newest chapbook, 'Luncheon Duets or Solipsistic Soliloquies' by George Samson of Tampa, Florida. One uncomfortable lunch date leads to a dozen poems of loneliness, insight, and other inexact emotions. George describes a situation that we have all been in, but tears off the polite façade to reveal what we're all really thinking during those awkward silences on a date that just isn't going right. How the need for approval and the loneliness of not finding it is thrust into our face and how we defensively retort, albeit to ourselves, with an endless inner conversation that spins off into self-loathing and misogyny (or misterogyny).
And it's all yours for only two stamps! The most important thing for me is getting my writers read, so fuck a price tag! Just cover my postage and you can enjoy George's work. You can check out the cover and a selection of his poetry at www.angelfire.com/ca/bpress. Check it out and order your copy today from Budget Press 2764 Caminito Cedros Del Mar, CA 92014.
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I was hanging out with some friends last night, feeling groovy and relaxed, when the TV was turned on and we watched Saturday Night Live. I saw the saddest thing that I have ever seen on that show, which, as we all know, is saying a lot. For those of you who watched it last night, you might remember the skit "You Win the Food" or something like that. In this skit, starving contestants from various war-torn, impoverished nations, played in a "Who Want's to be a Millionaire"- style game for food. Now, I have no problems with the skit, I loved it when I first saw it. In the November 24th edition of The Onion.
Now, Saturday Night did make some modifications. In The Onion article, the show and its contestants were Russian. (Which, of course, I appreciated.) And the Saturday Night skit was more generous in its prizes than The Onion. But the whole concept was a direct lift. They were both modeled after the same game show even. Needless to say The Onion's piece was more visive it's satire.
Is the show so hard up for ideas that they are now lifting shit off the net? Just look at the cast. Is it possible that the cumulative percentage of comic genius of the group is 5%? No Bill Murray. No John Hartman. No Chris Rock. Just a cast full of Joe Piscopos.
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The Cincinnati Bengals beat the San Francisco 49ers. How humiliating is that? Now the 49ers, the pride of football for how long?, have the same record as the worst team in the sport, the Bengals. Tell me, doesn't that make you the worst team in the sport? I remember Chris Collinsworth (a former Bengal) saying earlier in the week "this year we can finally beat the Niners." And they did.
If I was the head coach of the Niners and I was losing to the Bengals, I would have activated Steve Young on the spot and put him in the game. Who cares if it kills him? You can't lose to the Bengals. The Forty-Niners are now the Saturday Night Live of football.
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Russia has surrounded the Chechen capital of Grozny. They don't plan on going in, they remember what a disaster it was the first time. So instead they have set up their artillery around the city and commenced firing, with some bomber flights thrown in there as well, destroying the empty shells of a city that was already destroyed a couple of years back by a siege that made Sarajevo look like some sniper firing form the tower at the University of Texas. And a siege is exactly what it is. Two nineteenth century societies fighting it out, the same way th've done it for two hundred years.
U. S. State Department spokesman Jamie Rubin cautioned the Russian Leadership not to be "visive in their actions". Like their going to listen to anything the U.S. says. "Ha Ha! You can do it to Yugoslavia but you can't do it too us!"
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For those of you who are interested about Chechnya and all that, my friend Jason Bolt sent me an article from Milliyet, Turkey's largest daily newspaper. It is an interview with a Turkish intellectual and academic on the situation in Chechnya. It is an interesting interview and actually undermines my own arguments concerning the situation, especially concerning the issue of Islamic dissent. If you're into all this stuff, be sure to check out the article at johnniebbaker.tripod.com/article2.html.
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And now for the correspondence. In letter land today we first find a message from my buddy Dave, the owner of Hot Mama's Pizza on Pine St. in Seattle. Yes, right in the shit this last week. He sent me this report-
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Subject: ftwto
hope u have been cn us on the tube. I have been very touched and proud of my brothers and sisters here in seattle. if u haven't heard we have been protesting the fuck out of the wto. democracy is alive in seattle. the real reason for the riot on tuesday is that the protesters were so successful at kicking the cops asses. please let your readers know the protesters were so good that the cops could not keep order. at least 95% of the protesters are nonviolent and educated. the anarchist kids fucked things up for everybody. the chemistry went bad and the cops and protesters were made to look like assholes. the only assholes were the folks in the %5 who were there just to fuck shit up. let your readers know the truth and please give me your phone # so i can tell you about the excitement. my pizza place was in the middle of it all. we sold record amounts of pizza. it was like blondies in frisco with the line all day. cool shit tear gas , its been wild.
dave
seattle
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This next letter is from an ex-student of mine in Moscow, Olga Baturina. It's her comments on The Budget Press Review #3, in particular two of the Russian pieces. Read on, and if you're interested in ordering a copy of the Review #3, send in a buck to the address mentioned above.
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…I got your letter with the journal. Thank you very much.
You wrote your article more than a year ago but it sounds like it was this autumn. Things haven't been changing very much since then. I agree that revolution is hardly possible in Russia. But I think there is one more important thing about the revolution. One of Russian writers noticed that revolutions happened in capitals, rebellions happened in province. Moscow lives much better than the rest of the country, so Moscow doesn't want revolution. Of course, only a few people in province wants communist revolution, most of people realize that something is wrong in our 'kingdom' and doesn't know what to do. But they are tired of 10 years of reforms that gave them nothing. However, it's a sad subject to discuss.
A few words about "A Farewell to Russia".
I guess that our service (and our people in uniform) must produce a very strong impression on foreigners. It's really a big problem that some people in Russia don't respect other people. But Russia is a country of extremes. On the one pole are very bad people, on the other - very good ones. For example, I always get surprised when unfamiliar drivers offer their help on the road when we have a problem with our car. May be you know that our police has no duty to help drivers (according to famous Russian joke "Saving of drowning one is a business of drowning oneself"). So when your car stops and you don't know what to do there are always some drivers who are ready to help, though they have no time and have their own plans. As far as we all don't like police, there is even some kind of drivers brotherhood. So if one driver saw the policeman hiding among the trees to control your speed, he usually makes a sign to other drivers to inform them about this danger. I like it. And it works not only on the road. So if I left Russia, I'd miss the people from the second pole most of all.
Olga Baturina
Moscow
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Thanks for sharing Brenda's trip to Europe and Egypt with some of us who are staying here. I still remember vividly the feeling I had at LAX when I came back from Algeria, France, and Switzerland. I said to myself: this is home.
To me, California is home. And home is wherever you feel comfortable. However, travelling stays a hobby and I will follow your advice on taking note next time I'll travel about my impressions and emotions, for one does indeed forget. I truly enjoy reading you.
Saida.
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I shamefully admit that I bought fully into the Fight Club, being a frustrated salaryman who clings romantically to some vague notion of dismantling the workaday world. To me, Fight Club is about male fantasies and male anxieties, period. It displayed in full Hollywood regalia all the ugly, vain, naive, trite, small-minded, trivial notions that might pass through any man's head on any given day. Macho bullshit? Certainly. Revolting if you see it as a model for the way things should be. Revealing, in some small, entertaining way, if you see it as a fantasy for the hordes of small-minded, frustrated, white collar types out there (and aren't you glad you're not one of us?).
Respectfully yours
~ Will Stagl.
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Until next time.
Budget Files
