blog notes Monday, April 16, 20074/16/2007 9:33:16 PM


RELUCTANT TRAVELER
Elvis Sighting in Malaysia!
GOD SEX POLITICS 2007 Malaysia at
No BLACK TIE in Kuala Lumpur 21 April 2007

I’ve traveled most of my life, lived in the Middle East, North Africa, and visited over seventy five countries. I’m a natural gypsy traveling soul, but one who dearly loves his home. However, before this trip I had the odd premonition that I wouldn’t return, not a moment of passing insecurity, but a sense of fear and sadness that I had never experienced before.
Having been around death and worked with the dying over the years, I don’t necessarily have a fear of death; however, when I see death I’m not inclined to spit him in the eye, most often I will acknowledge him and walk to the other side. I’ve been sensing death very close over the past year and this has definitely caused me to be anxious. Again, it’s not the fear of death, but the imperative to get my creative work out, to tie up loose ends with family and friends, and to leave life on a positive note. But I will fight death to the last bit, as I enjoy life tremendously, and take such amazing delight in the everyday. I felt that when I was leaving I was saying farewell to patients, friends, and family. It is this state of attention and awareness I need to bring to every day, the appreciation for the sweetness of life. Life is all too brief and I cherish how long I’ve been here with the numerous close calls and near death experiences and health issues over the years, I’m not sure how many of the nine lives I have left, but while I will still passionately engage in my life, I don’t quite throw caution to the wind.
The long flight out of JFK and the Japan Airline crew with service, even in economy class, that was impeccable and gracious, and the vegetarian fare was delicious. The stewardesses are gorgeous! Unlike some of the US airlines where the stewardesses always look hormonal, bloated, and in a sour mood. I dread the American and Delta airline ladies who often look like the last place they want to be is on a plane and all they want to do is be home with a cold beer and soaking their tired feet. I know it is a tough trade,, but regardless of your trade or profession the imperative is to do it well and not make your clients suffer. It seems that some stewardesses feel as if they have you prisoner and they can be as abusive and rude as they like. The last few flights I’ve been lucky. Quantas crews are the jolliest and friendliest lads! The ladies from Air France look like their slumming from their day job on the fashion runway. But the girls from Singapore on JAL make the flight worth while. In a glance, I almost fell in love with the girls from Singapore. Gracious, pretty, polite, and sexy as could be with a smile. They remind me of a dear friend.
We zoom into Norita airport in Tokyo. I love the gracious politeness of the JAL crew. A long flight and everyone is tired. When I spoke to one of the ladies, I said, You look terrific for such a long flight. She said, “But I’m exhausted.” I appreciate her keeping up the appearance.
This lack of civility in modern times is what I often rail about. Even being back in London, I long for the days when civility and politeness was the norm, though one of the places where it still remains is Japan and Thailand. Though it may be only a polite façade, I will take the civility with great appreciation. It is also a consideration that I need to hold in my interactions with others. Though I’ve been in the US a long time, I still value formality, the “Mr. or Doctor,” and well polished manners. I think this is part of the breakdown in society, though I could argue there are far greater breakdowns in society, but the basics are civility and manners. I think schools would be far better off if this was the norm.
Saturday, April 14, 2007 SINGAPORE 4 AM
Awake at 4 am in Singapore. A long long flight. Energetically and otherwise. I’ve been wanting to writing for the last 48 hours. Jet lagged. Soma. Uggh. Gone. Spirits wasted. Difficult right now, at the beginning of this trip. Going through the highs and lows of travel. Is this trip necessary or even desired? Vermont, I miss you!
In one part as I started the trip there was this feeling of impeding death and that I wouldn’t return to Vermont. I was afraid to go. Though a part of me was saying for the price of an airline ticket is it worth it? I’d rather lose the 75,000 miles. Am I afraid to take the chance to travel? I was afraid that I wasn’t going to be able to finish what I had to say and write. Too much of my work is still unfinished, journals need to be prepared, books need to be finished, music recorded, and I want to leave a coherent body of work. I feel that my best work as an artist and poet is ahead of me.
Not really needing or wanting this experience of Singapore. I really do not need or want to travel much anymore. At least in the conventional sense. Out of all the places I’ve traveled the place that is most appealing is inside my mind, though I have been greatly informed by all the places I’ve visited, and rarely would I trade many of my experiences for my home bed.

SINGAPORE
I’ve only had a vague understanding of this city, with its emphasis on Confucianism, diligence, work, and the value of industriousness. Also, most infamously, executing drug traffickers like the Australian they hanged recently. It certainly sends a message. The other piece that’s remarkable are the cigarette packages with horrible pictures of cancer victims, oral cancer, skin cancer, etc.. So when you buy a pack of cigarettes you get this gross picture of what cancer can do. Given the economic impact of cigarettes on public health, it seems a reasonable precaution, though I would like them to take the total cost to the public health and add that fee to the price of cigarettes. Anyway, back to Singapore.
Singapore has been a trading city for several millenniums, fought over and argued, and the usual sorry mess of history that has survived quite well. Surprisingly, so much of the island is verdant. The highways into the main cities are lined with thick tropical vegetation; though I’m sure all of it is a recent addition, and little of the original fauna remains. Given this area I would imagine it was an island filled with tropical hardwoods, but with the impact of humans over the past 5, 000 years little of the original habitat remains. Nevertheless, I value the Singapore government for keeping so much of the landscape verdant.
At 5 am the city is stirring to life. I’m at the Oriental hotel overlooking the city and the harbor with its office towers, commercial city, and massive shopping malls. You could spend your life in these malls and never leave. Given the oppressive heat and the chilly cool of the malls, a retreat into mall land is a welcomed relief.
Singapore is the hub of desire! The women are quite attractive, mostly Chinese with Malay stock, and the Singapore stewardesses on JAL must be chosen for how beautiful they are. Gorgeous! I even wrote a song them called Girls of Singapore. I’m reminded of them as I look out the windows and see this parade of loveliness.
Singapore. Old colonial city in its port side. Downtown Fullerton Hotel, a relic of the English Imperial crown. I enjoy the quiet of the city. Not as much density as I would have expected. Not a Hong Kong or a downtown Tokyo, though I was prepared for that. Singapore, clean city, sterile city in some ways. Well ordered. Drug dealers hanged. Ouch. Strict city of order and cleanliness in the harbor side area. One particularly charming piece is the main harbor that has welcomed travelers for thousands of years and served as the trading hub for south east Asia
As I was processing this the other day, tremendous anxiety about leaving Vermont, but when I finally left, and started the travel I realized the cocoon I was living in. It is a small tiny part of the world. Getting caught up in the small town in Vermont, when my creative energy seeks the outlet of large creative spaces. But I love the familiarity of my Vermont home and the ease of life. I’ve been able to have a great creative space there.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
SINGAPORE DAY:
JET LAG AGAIN
2nd full day in Singapore. Slowly shaking off the jet-lag. I had used sleeping pills in Japan last year and was feeling absolutely trashed from that. This time I decided to do it the slow natural way, far easier. Not even a valerian and skull-cap. The heavy disorientation and then the struggle to lift yourself out of the thick fog of sleep. Liberal doses of coffee and alcoholic beverages seem to make the transition easier and also to help clear the liver.
Singapore
Harbor side in downtown with its pristine walkways belies the true nature of this oriental city. It is a fantasy of what we the Singaporeans would like to project, an easy blend of colonial past, quaint statues of Indian and Chinese traders and coolies, in a perfectly manicured environment. The image is too flawless; a city is far grittier, though I appreciate the effort for tidiness.
Singapore is this southeast Asian stew pot of cultures – Malaya, Indian, Chinese, and hundreds of other bloodlines thrown in. This thriving trading hub that has been the center of the cross roads between east and west, served as a source of conflict and wealth for the Dutch, English, Portuguese, Arabs, and anyone who could elbow their way into the port. As I city by this sterile harbor scene, with its lack of smell and the heavy humid air, my imagination peers not that far back in time when this harbor was filled with Chinese junks, scows, boats of all kind, schooners who plied these waters, dozens of languages and cultures with the voices calling out, “Buy! Sell!” The air would have been filled with the smell of spices, effluence from the bays, cooked foods from many nations, a convergence of sights and smells. Today the commerce is instant and electronic, bank buildings like the Maybank, HSBC, and office towers that dwarf those ambitions.
Singapore is all about commerce and shopping. Every brand name store in the US and Europe is a presence from 7-1l to Yves St. Laurent. Global branding once seen as an advertiser’s fantasy is seen as common place – every sneaker, cell phone, electronic gizmo, clothing found in a suburban US mall is readily available. The idea of the global village is present.
Today, the harbor still has rows of white stucco colonial style buildings that ring the inside of the harbor and serve tasty dishes of Thai, Malay, Chinese, Indonesian food, and one pub that advertises itself at “People’s Republic of Liverpool” as a noisy off beer soaked off key football song comes out of the bar.
Singapore downtown most prominently with the durian fruit shaped civic centers. The durian is the “stinky” fruit that is beloved by many in southeast Asia. The custom for Westerners is to hold your nose and scoop out the custard like center. Curious to see the dome of one of the Victorian era buildings rise over the top of the durian, but it’s like a small nipple on the building, the English empire dwarfed by the new millennium. I was expecting to be overwhelmed by Singapore like one would be in Tokyo where the density of life, the dense concentration of sky scrapers dwarfs any sense of humaneness. The Fullerton hotel as this iconic grandma proudly holding its own against the encroachment of time, a curious, though well maintained relic that harkens back to the empire. Perhaps, the best icon is the Raffles Hotel in the downtown district. It was the Queen hotel of the Orient occupying an entire city block with its sprawling white stucco palace.
High tea at Raffles Hotel! This is the experience to have in life. It harkens back to a more civilized era of tea, sandwiches, and pastries in the afternoon. In the restored restaurant, the staff brings towns of pastries and sweets; broad white linen napkins placed on your lap, heavy silverware and galley pots for service, as you sit back and allow your imagination to drift back to the colonial period. Though I detest the notion of aristocracy and evils of colonialism, I can appreciate this small quaint artifact from another era.

The thing I like the best about Singapore is the lack of honking horns. In New York City it is a mad house of constant honking and blaring horns, a city where people seem to compete for their degree of anger. Why can’t Mayor Bloomberg insist on taxi drivers who can speak a reasonable degree of English, know the city, follow traffic rules, keep a clean cab, and don’t blare their horns? Can the taxis be more like those in Singapore or Japan where the cabs are temples of immaculateness.
By the centuries end at the present rate of global warming this city like most other harbor cities will take on the appearance of Venice with water lapping at the base of the buildings. This is the turning point for civilization and it seems that it is a neck and neck battle with nature. In the natural evolution of things; of course, Mother nature always bats last. Though there is an incremental movement to addressing global warning, humans are at their core greedy and self motivated, driven by basic biological imperatives, survival and short term economic gain. The mega cities like Mexico City with its uncountable population will collapse as it is overwhelmed with its pollution, lack of water and inability to stop sprawl. Though it would seem imperative and incumbent for a species to stop before it destroys itself, few species to my knowledge have chosen this course, most expanding to their limits, devouring their food source, increasing in population till a predator – disease, environmental degradation, etc., have taken over. I don’t have the confidence that humans are any different than any other species that has come and gone. Though we may appear to have the capacity to change, and we may do so on some smaller personal ways, we seem to lack the collective will and political power to radically alter our destiny. The dye for global warming is cast, the only questions is: Can we mitigate the damage? With the Malthusian population explosion, the lack of basic environmental regulations in major polluters, and for the US’s unwillingness to genuinely address climactic changes as a species we are looking at a 500 year window where epidemics, famine, plague, and environmental entropy will compete for ascendancy.
Yes, we can make personal choices, better light bulbs, but unless an entire society like Australia mandated recently to change all the light bulbs in a country can it make an impact. The problem isn’t greener technology or more environmentally sound ideas, it’s a far more basic question that society so far hasn’t answered: Is the system of global industrial development a viable direction for the planet. In doing the simple arithmetic, the answer is no.
What was very freaky was reading a Newsweek article praising Global Warming. Hell, I use this as a point of satire, and the goddamn Newsweek has the chtuzpha to write about Global Warming as a positive thing. Hey, Newsweek – this is the death knell of the planet and you are saying it’s great!
LITTLE INDIA
Getting a chance to get away from the harbor side and wander to Little India. It’s far cleaner and more orderly than one would find in Connaught Place in Delhi. The Indian quarter with its garish temple to Kali and its delicious smells that emanate from every store from restaurant. There is a row of vegetarian restaurants and I choose one at random. The parade of people from around southeast Asia pass by my lunch window: Moslem girls wrapped in colorful headscarves, Sikhs in turbans, Chinese, Malays, Muslim men with skull caps, and the flow of society seemingly smooth and coherent is a like a stream passing before my window. How do the Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Chinese and other nationalities meet and converge in this city without violence? As long as the Americans don’t invade there will be peace.
Uniqueness of a city: Every city or place on the globe has a unique aspect that is to be discovered or discerned. What is unique about a given place? In Singapore it is the Night Safari.
But I will skip ahead in my narrative by a day or two. We’ve driven over to Malaysia and find our way into the old Portugese city of Malakka. We walk down to the port area with its dreary decayed houses along the canal. This is the city of the famed architecture? We walk into Raffles bar and there is an Elvis impersonator who has a fine crooning voice. I would have liked to have seen him on a larger stage and this piano player by the name of Don Go. Quite a scene as this Malaysian Elvis in a white red rhinestone jump suit is crooning Elvis tunes.
Elvis made Maalka quite worthwhile. I was chatting with the locals I explained that I’m doing a show called GOD SEX POLITICS in a few days… how would that go over in Kuala Lampur? God? Okay, I will not tell jokes about the prophet Mohammed. But it is funny I can do tons of Jesus jokes & Christians don’t take it too seriously. Ah, fundamentalism in any country or culture is deadly.

Stay tuned for more notes from Malaysia. Feeling homesick for Vermont.

P.S.News this morning from the States: Sad for the families and survivors as I heard about the shooting in the US, but there was part of me that said: What about the thousands of children who will die from preventable disease like water borne viruses, poor sanitation, disease, and poverty? Every day in Iraq dozens are killed and it seems a distant experience for most US Americans. I wish that they could include on CNN the other tragedies that also happen every day on the planet.