Colin's Blog

Been Too Long

noreply@blogger.com (Colin) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 16:50:00 +0000

Man, I haven't posted here in a LONG TIME. Don't worry, I'll get around to it soon enough :)

Blognigger's Common Sense with Cops

noreply@blogger.com (Colin) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 01:49:00 +0000

What White People Say Behind Blacks' Backs may become a regular feature of this blog. If you haven't already, check out My Race Essay.

Blognigger has written an excellent piece on the Henry Louis Gates story and how to handle police, here.

His common sense advice:

ALWAYS SUCK THE POLICE’S BALLS AS HARD AS YOU CAN.

Use yes sir, no sir, thank you sir because the police can do whatever they want at all times.

This approach has served me well in a number of different run-ins with the police – whether I was writing graffiti which was illegal, or Driving While Black which wasn’t.

This is so simple it's ridiculous that he has to say it, and it's even worse that there's a huge debate in his commentage.

One night I was driving my friend Tez home after playing basketball. Tez is black and lived in an all-black part of St. Louis. We got pulled over for what I call Driving While White (DWW).

While Driving While Black (DWB) is illegal in more parts of the country and a more serious offense in most cops' eyes, DWW is also a crime in some parts of the country - black cities. I'll explain. Driving While White Male may be a better term because police often give white girls a pass if they assume the girl has a boyfriend in the neighborhood. But if police see a white guy driving through an all-black part of town, they'll often pull him over on the assumption he's there to buy drugs. Or to tell him to get out of there. I've lived in lower-middle-class black neighborhoods where DWW wasn't a crime, but it's a crime in most bad black neighborhoods.

Tez lived in a bad neighborhood and we got pulled over. After I slipped a few 'sirs' into the conversation, I politely asked why we were pulled over. The officer answered that the car wasn't registered to an address in the neighborhood. I nodded in complete understanding.

Now, this wasn't the first time I'd been cornered with a black person by police, and it certainly wasn't the first time I'd seen some black ghetto attitude, but it was the first time I saw the two meet. Tez started arguing that driving in a different neighborhood wasn't a crime and this wasn't necessary. He kept telling the cops to do "only what's necessary." That word "necessary" over and over again.

I thought the only thing necessary was for Tez to SHUT THE FUCK UP! These are COPS you dumb-ass! Tez took the hint, or maybe dropped the battle because he had absolutely no backup from me.

We were wearing basketball clothes and stankin'. It wasn't too late at night and, besides my tattoo, I didn't have any douchebaggy red flags like a pencil-line beard or a big, heavy chain. After searching my car, the cops let us go. But I still believe that if I hadn't been in Blognigger's common-sense camp, Tez (and maybe me too) would have gone to jail.

My excellent "ball-sucking" saved the day by appeasing the cops and discouraging Tez.

I've been locked up for no reason (in fascist South Carolina). I know just as well as the next guy that some cops are insufferable assholes. But I've also had a lot of cop friends and most of them are relatively normal.

There's one thing that cops are not: pensive, open-minded liberals. You're not going to win an argument with one and you sure as shit aren't going to intimidate one or shout him down. If you try, you may get your ass kicked or locked up, or both.

We have Blognigger's testimony that sucking balls works. I've heard my good buddy Carlos' testimony as well. Carlos is an exchange student from Jamaica. Now, you dumb-asses thinking of weed and rastas should know that the majority of Jamaicans don't smoke weed or have long hair. Carlos is clean-cut and he barely drinks.

We talked about DWB once and he admitted that he gets pulled over a lot. But he added that almost as soon as the cop hears him talk, they let him go. He's been in St. Louis six years and he's never been to jail! Carlos is a good-natured guy with an ear-to-ear grin. And having grown up in Kingston, he has none of the black ghetto attitude common in Americans.

I am no apologist for racism in America, and I don't deny it. I don't deny the racism deep inside me. I know racism and I know racists. But still, when confronted with a guy like Carlos, even the biggest asshole of cops will let him go. I can see 'em thinking, "This is just a good kid; I'd be a monster to take him in."

Black people, white people, all people: that is the effect you want to induce in cops.

I agree with Obama's original statement that the cop in the Gates case "acted stupidly." However, I also identify with the sentiment of most white people according to opinion polls.

Black readers, this is what white people thought about the case: Well, what did Gates do? What did he say? Oh, he was yelling and calling the cop racist? Well, that's stupid.

We white people aren't thinking about the societal injustice context of every news story. We think about what sensible people should do in the situation. OK, so a neighbor saw a couple guys forcing their way in the back door of the house. The neighbor called the police, as most white people feel they should have. To the contrary of rampant speculation, the neighbor did not mention race in the 911 call.

We white people think of the officer on duty responding to the call as merely doing his job. We feel sorry for him that he got yelled at and insulted while merely doing his job. Couldn't Gates be reasonable and understand that the police had been called for a burglary to his address? Couldn't he just show his ID without the big production?

Now, I think the officer acted stupidly but many white people don't go that far because of how stupidly Gates acted. If you have two assholes being assholes to each other, the one with more power is going to win. Plain and simple.

It's really not surprising that a Harvard professor should need a lesson in common sense. Thanks, Blognigger!

Let's break down some stupid comments from BN's readers.

The first is from "Learn Your Rights (or be a lazy ball-sucker)":

If you are NOT breaking any laws, sucking dick is only giving the cops and their horrible system positive reinforcement. You should stop being so lazy and learn YOUR RIGHTS so that you can handle police officers tactfully and legally. You don’t have to become a lawyer to avoid sucking cop dick. They want to keep their jobs and not look like an idiot to their boss when they bring you in for nothing (even though they can and still might). There are simple scripts to follow that will get you out of most encounters. The last thing that cop wants to do is show up in front of a judge when you take them to court!!!

You people just want to take the easy way out because it takes work and sacrifice to fight the system. FUCK YOU! If you pay taxes, cops are your employees. You’re making it worse for everyone by being lazy and uneducated cock-suckers. People died for your rights, now “We gotta take the power back!”

Here are 3 obvious assumptions about this dumb-ass:

He is white
He has never been to jail
He is from a low-crime city

If those three assumptions don't apply to you, don't take his advice. I heard this line of shit once and tried it when I was about 18. I tried to tell a cop he couldn't search my car. Then I was handcuffed for "acting suspicious" while he searched my car. If I hadn't tried that shit, he probably wouldn't have given me the minor-in-possession ticket for the bottle of gin I had under the driver's seat.

Here's "Ty":

Good for him for NOT BEING A FUCKING PUSSY anymore. He didn’t do shit wrong and everybody knows it else charges would not have been dropped. Period ... Fuck it. I’m going to be Skip Gates. I’m already ready for the beating ... “Why do you need to see my ID, officer? In fact, what brings YOU to MY neighborhood? May I please have your name and badge number?”

OK, this isn't assumption. This is fact: Ty will spend time in jail again. If he is black and if he acts like that, he will spend a night in jail in the future. You just can't beat those odds. If he were white and acted like that he'd see the inside of a cell, but being black simply increases the number of opportunities / run-ins with police he'll have. Can't beat those odds.

I don't know what Ty does for a living or how much his time is worth to him. But apparently it isn't worth more than "NOT BEING A FUCKING PUSSY" to cops. Real smart.

We white people don't want open-minded liberals for cops. They wouldn't work out. The job is inherently violent. We white people have a deep respect for cops, which isn't reciprocated in the black community.

Are you going to change the system or make a difference on your own? No. But you can make a difference whether you go to jail or not. Don't be stupid. Suck balls.

American Pastoral: Disobedience and the 60s

noreply@blogger.com (Colin) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 23:34:00 +0000

American Pastoral by Philip Roth is an all-American tale.

Seymour Levov grew up in a Jewish section of 1940s Newark, New Jersey. Nicknamed “The Swede” for his blond hair and huge stature, The Swede was the star of his baseball, basketball, and football teams, often leading the school to city and state finals. The Swede was the envy of his high school and a legend throughout greater Newark.

The context of The Swede's fame is important to the story. In Roth's own words:

“Let's remember the energy. Americans were governing not only themselves but some two hundred million people in Italy, Austria, Germany, and Japan … Atomic power was ours alone … And playing Sunday morning softball on the Chancellor Avenue field and pickup basketball on the asphalt courts behind the school were all the boys who had come back alive, neighbors, cousins, older brothers, their pockets full of separation pay, the GI Bill inviting them to break out in ways they could not have imagined possible before the war. Our class started high school six months after the unconditional surrender of the Japanese, during the greatest moment of collective inebriation in American history. And the upsurge of energy was contagious … Sacrifice and constraint were over. The Depression had disappeared. Everything was in motion ...”

Tom Wolfe described America's golden days in Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test:

“cruising in the neon glories of the new American night … with all this Straight-8 and V-8 power underneath and all this neon glamour overhead, which somehow tied in with the technological superheroics of the jet, TV, atomic subs, ultrasonics--Postwar American suburbs--glorious world! … ”

Kick-ass Detroit cars, Hollywood movies, huge houses in the burbs with yards and fences. The American Dream. Happy days. Granted, the Soviet Union was a superpower as well, but we had Chevrolets and John Wayne and blue jeans and cheeseburgers and rock-n-roll. We were the center of the universe. We beat the Nazis and the Japs at the same time. We won that war. It's our world, bitches.

Also important to the context is The Swede's all-Jewish neighborhood of Newark. He's the grandson of immigrants. The third-generation often identifies more with the new country. This was not only true with The Swede, but his classmates and the entire neighborhood. His community was on the verge of assimilation and wanted in on this American glory, their own place in the American Dream.

The Swede embodied their dreams and aspirations. He was big and blond and dominating all these American sports – a Jew beating the natives at baseball, basketball, and football. Fittingly, The Swede's best sport was baseball, America's past-time. Jewish South Newark was melting into the pot and The Swede was leading the way.

The Swede was a humble man. A conformist, he wanted to do the right thing, to play by the rules, to get ahead through hard work and perserverance. He wanted everybody to be happy. He approached life with a win-win mentality. The American way.

The Swede got an offer to play ball with a farm team for the Giants, but his father wanted him to take over the family business. The Swede obliged. The one time The Swede stood up to his father was in marrying an Irish Catholic girl – Dawn Dwyer from Elizabeth, New Jersey – who was the 1949 Miss New Jersey. Could there be a more all-American union? The all-state athlete / US Marine / 3rd generation Jew married Miss New Jersey / 3rd generation Irish girl. God bless America!

According to The Swede's unsympathetic brother Jerry:

“He was very stoical. He was a very nice, simple, stoical guy … Just a sweetheart … In one way he could be conceived as completely banal and conventional. An absence of negative values and nothing more. Bred to be dumb, built for convention, and so on. That ordinary decent life that they all want to live, and that's it.”

The Swede's family is an inspiring, upwardly-mobile immigrant story. His grandfather, a working man, came to the States and worked in a leather tannery making gloves. Lou Levov, The Swede's father, dropped out of school at 13 to work in the tanneries as well. Lou Levov, a tough old man, built a respectable glove business called Newark Maid. The Swede took over the business and ran with it, growing ever more and ascending into the bona fide upper-middle class.

For their American Dream, Seymour “The Swede” Levov and 1949 Miss New Jersey Dawn Dwyer Levov moved out to Old Rimrock, New Jersey, a fictional town in rural, Republican New Jersey. In portraying its American-ness, Roth places Old Rimrock near Morristown, New Jersey, which was General George Washington's choice of a strategic camp during the Revolutionary War. The Swede's favorite American hero was Johnny Appleseed, and imagined himself as Johnny Appleseed conquering the countryside.

The happy couple had a daughter named Merry – a daughter not as beautiful as her Miss New Jersey mother or all-state athlete father, but they managed to love her anyway. Merry had a stutter that they tried like hell to remedy. Then she got fat. Then, during the turbulent 60s and Vietnam War, Merry adopted a radical ideology known at the time as the New Left. Fervently anti-war, anti-capitalism, anti-bourgeois, anti-Johnson, and every other kind of anti- those people are. Then “she went out one day and blew up the post office, destroying right along with it Dr. Fred Conlon and the village's general store …”

16 year-old Merry detonated a bomb in the town's general store that killed a well-regarded local. She went into hiding forever. The Swede's American Dream was shattered. His daugher was a murderer. He and Dawn were known as the parents of the hometown murderer. The rest of the novel details The Swede's trainwreck life, and how it all stems from his terrorist daughter.

1949 Miss New Jersey Dawn Levov went into depression. She was in a mental hospital for a short time. When she got out, The Swede bought her a facelift. Then she started having an affair with Bill Orcutt, Old Rimrock's super-WASP all-American of Ivy League heritage going back to the Revolutionary War. We learn there was a divorce. In a second marriage, The Swede had three athletic sons, all assumed not to be terrorists.

“Pastoral, as an adjective, refers to the lifestyle of shepherds and pastoralists, moving livestock around larger areas of land according to seasons and availability of water and food. 'Pastoral' also describes literature, art and music which depicts the life of shepherds, often in a highly idealised manner.” -- Wikipedia definition

The Swede, the shepherd / sheep, was a nice guy who got shit on. This book does not depict his shepherd life in a 'highly idealised manner'.

This review interprets the book as being about: “a very good man who perhaps must be destroyed because he is not a very good Jew. 'By virtue of his isomorphism to the Wasp world,' Seymour 'Swede' Levov escapes the pain and self-consciousness of being a Jew in America; he passes for a WASP, and he apparently cannot be allowed to get away with that. In the end, the Swede's charmed escape from Jewishness – his simple possession of his own DNA – seems to be American Pastoral's essential subject and the explanation for the terrible punishment …”

This argument could be supported by various passages from the book. Here's the unsympathetic brother Jerry:

“You wanted Miss America? Well, you've got her, with a vengeance – she's your daughter! You wanted to be a real American jock, a real American marine, a real American hotshot with a beautiful Gentile babe on your arm? You longed to belong like everybody else in the United States of America? … The reality of this place is right up in your kisser now. With the help of your daughter you're as deep in the shit as a man can get, the real American crazy shit. America amok!”

The Swede's father may be the main assimilation character in the book, and he's stabbed in the eye with a fork by the 'Gentile' wife of Bill Orcutt, the Gentile neighbor who is banging The Swede's wife.

However, Roth doesn't talk much about Jewishness in the book. Who would be the Jewish ideal to follow? The brother Jerry? The guy becomes a leading heart surgeon in Miami, taking a half dozen wives and having a dozen or so kids. And nobody likes him much.

Plus, Roth's denunciation of the Newark race riots (through The Swede's old man) seems much too sincere to be arguing against the good old American way. If assimilation were the point of the book, Roth would have created more contrast between Jewishness and American-ness.

No, this book isn't a rebuke of assimilation or a warning to those not keepin' it real. Rather, it's a rebuke of the American Dream. The American Dream isn't all rosy. The Swede did everything he was supposed to and did it well. And he got shit on. America may shit on you too. That's the message.

The high that America felt in the 40s and 50s – the time when Roth grew up – was an illusion. The wake-up call came in the 60s. The big hangover from the big high – that's the story Roth is telling. It's a clarification of history. Merry wasn't rebelling against Gentilism, she was rebelling against The Swede's Happy Days idea of America.

I think Roth wrote this book to set the record straight on the 60s. I grew up in the 90s, when the book was written and published. It was a time when the 60s were cool again. Grateful Dead was one of the most popular bands and white kids wore those hideous tie-dye t-shirts. Some corporate ass-clowns put on a second Woodstock festival in 1997. The 60s were remembered as peace, love, long hair, good music, drugs, etc. I think Roth saw the 60s being remembered like that and wrote a book to set the record straight. The 60s were not how we Gen-Xers and -Yers imagined them.

I was one of about a dozen people to read Tom Daschle's book, Like No Other Time. I'll never forget a sentence he wrote in explaining the 60s. He said that if you weren't there, you just don't understand how unsure the country was that we'd get through the times. Not sure they'd get through? He's right, I didn't understand.

The country wasn't sure they'd survive people like The Swede's daughter Merry. The Weathermen. The Black Panther Party. The 60s were not all peace and love. “Are you down with the revolution?” wasn't a cheesy pickup line. It was for real.

When it came to light during the 2008 presidential election that Barack Obama had ties to Weathermen founder Bill Ayers, most dumb-asses like you and me thought, “Who the hell are the Weathermen?” The Weather Underground Organization (WUO) was a radical socialist organization that aimed to overthrow the government of the United States. To overthrow the government of the United States. In the words of Weathermen co-founder John Jacobs: “We're against everything that is good and decent in honky America. We will burn and loot and destroy. We are the incubation of your mothers' nightmares.”

Here's a picture of John Jacobs at the 1969 Weathermen-organized Chicago protests / riots, Days of Rage (the slogan for the protest-riot was “Bring the War Home”). Your eyes don't deceive you; he is wearing a football helmet. Others in his crowd are also wearing helmets. This was not peace and love.

The Weathermen carried out bombings across the country. Merry's bombing of the general store wasn't the brainchild of Roth's creative genius – it was from the daily news. Her going into hiding wasn't his imagination either – most of the Weathermen went into hiding in the 70s. Bill Ayers was one of those who re-emerged and got involved in Chicago politics. He is now an esteemed professor at the University of Illinois – Chicago.

Aside from the Vietnam War, race relations were hot. The Civil Rights Act had recently passed, and blacks were realizing how shitty of a hand they had. Race riots broke out in Newark, Detroit, and Los Angeles. The Black Panther party and other black power organizations sprang up.

Ever seen the movie, Dead Presidents? In that movie, black veterans rob a Brinks armored truck. That wasn't creative fiction either. Many leaders of the black power movement went on to rob armored trucks or kill police officers, or both. Briefly mentioned in the book is Angela Davis, an radical activist who was tried and acquitted for the murder of a California judge. She went on to be an esteemed professor at the University of California.

Sidenote: do prestigious universities compete for these ambiguously criminal revolutionaries? Like top high school athletes?

Roth set the record straight on the 60s. It was an ugly time. And much of the American Dream is illusion. You can play by all the rules and do the right thing, like the Swede, and still get shit on by America.

The other story in this book is the parenting angle.

The Swede raised Merry with all the progressive sensibilities of the day. In his unsympathetic brother's words:

“He understood that something was going wrong, but he was no Ho-Chi-Minhite like his darling fat girl. Just a liberal sweetheart of a father. The philosopher-king of ordinary life. Brought her up with all the modern ideas of being rational with your children. Everything permissable, everything forgivable, and she hated it. People don't admit how much they resent other people's children, but this kid made it easy for you. She was miserable, self-righteous – little shit was no good from the time she was born … But it's one thing to let your hair grow long, it's one thing to listen to rock-and-roll music too loud, but it's another to jump the line and throw the bomb. That crime could never be made right. There was no way back for my brother from that bomb. That bomb detonated his life. His perfect life was over. Just what she had in mind.”

Merry enjoyed a happy childhood, and she was always closer to her father. There was always the stutter, and then the fatness. And then she adopted the radical ideology. She became scathingly critical of not just the war. She criticized her parents' American Dream as being bougeois and selfish. Dawn sometimes couldn't be around Merry because of the things she said. Dawn's words:

“'The Democratic Republic of Vietnam' – if I hear that from her one more time, Seymour, I swear, I'll go out of my mind!”

At first The Swede considered it a phase. Merry's ideas would eventually moderate. However, he started to lightly engage her when she posted the Weathermen's motto on her wall (one more time for effect): “We're against everything that is good and decent in honky America. We will burn and loot and destroy. We are the incubation of your mothers' nightmares.”

The Swede emphasized to her that he was also against the war, that everybody in the family was against the war. He argued that the proper course of action is to contact their representatives and express their opinion respectfully. She would rebut his arguments with vile condemnations of the political process, New Jersey, and their bougeois life.

The Swede tried to learn about her mysterious friends in New York. These were the people who gave her the disturbing literature he found in the house. The Swede tried to curb her visits to New York by making deals and reasoning with her in a saga of conversations.

In “Conversation #67 about New York,” The Swede finally restricted his daughter from going to the city. He told her to make a difference at home in Old Rimrock, New Jersey, so she bombed the general store and post office, killing Dr. Fred Conlon.

Some critics believe Roth is condemning The Swede's progressive parenting style – another claim with ample support. The Swede's unsympathetic brother:

“You're the one who always comes off looking good. And look where it's got you. Refusing to give offense. Blaming yourself. Tolerant respect for every position. Sure, it's 'liberal' – I know, a liberal father … And look where the fuck it's got you! … No, you didn't make the war. You made the angriest kid in America. Ever since she was a kid, every word she spoke was a bomb.”

Also:

“Look, are you going to break with appearances and pit your will against your daughter's or aren't you? … for Christ's sake go in there and get her. I'll go in and get her … I'll clear out the office and get on a plane and I'll come. And I'll go in there, and, I assure you, I'll get her off the McCarter Highway, the little shit, the selfish little fucking shit, playing her fucking games with you! She won't play them with me, I assure you … ”

Regardless of Roth's intent on this point, I've known good and bad kids that were raised by both old-school and modern parental methods. I'm not sure it makes a difference. What I took away from this book is that, no matter how much you plan the perfect upbringing, it could go horribly wrong.

I was raised in relatively old-school fashion. Lots of rules. I got spanked, slapped, etc. Nothing too bad, but definitely not a liberal upbringing. And I turned out a mess. The worst thing a son can turn into is a drug-addict or -dealer – and for a while in high school, it seemed probable that I'd be at least one of the two.

What happens when you just can't control your kid? What happens when you do all the right things and the shit still hits the fan? The book hammers home a feeling of no control, of helplessness.

I want to raise my kid in a more progressive fashion (my old man says this will change when I actually have kids). I'll spank and slap him, but I'm going to be honest about things most parents don't talk about. It wasn't until after most of my troubles that I learned my old man was wild in high school too. Drugs, jail, the works. And he never told me. Maybe if I'm honest with my kids, they'll steer clear of all that. I'll tell them how fat and ugly all the smokers and hard-partiers are now. And of course they'll know what jail's like.

But what if your plan doesn't work? The kid still goes rotten. Does the plan even matter? I was bad from the beginning. I was always the worst kid in all my classes – starting with pre-school and kindergarten. My old man tells his friends something like this: 'You know how they tell you about peer pressure? They tell you to keep your kid away from bad influences? One day I realized, there's no bad kid that's going to corrupt my kid. Because my kid is that bad kid! It's my kid! They don't tell you what to do when it's your kid.'

By that point, there wasn't anything anybody could have said to me. I wasn't listening. Any plan would / parental strategy would have been futile.

This book scared me a little regarding children. I think it's a good idea to aim for quantity, because quality is a long shot.

American Pastoral by Philip Roth won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 and was listed by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 greatest novels of all time.

Some studio is supposed to be making a film of American Pastoral, here it is(n't) on IMBD.

A documentary on the Weather Underground (a puff piece in my opinion), here.

Jimi Hendrix playing the national anthem at Woodstock:

Weightlifting: What I've Learned

noreply@blogger.com (Colin) — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 07:21:00 +0000

Intro

“Fitness is a journey, not a destination.”

I started working out in 1998. I've experimented with almost every workout ever conceived. Whole body workouts, push-pull, 1 body part / day, plyometrics for speed and vertical jump, BFS, HST, negative reps, forced reps, and even weird stuff like isometric holds.

I want to share what I've learned with beginners, interested parties, and anyone looking to get started. The following principles are the best practices I've learned in the last ten years.

Disclaimer: These principles are for people of a beginning or average experience level in weightlifting. If you'd consider yourself at an advanced level (many years' experience, competitive bodybuilders, collegiate and professional athletes, etc.), you may learn something but I doubt my recommendations will take you to the next level.

Functionality in Fitness

“Modern fitness is defined by appearance rather than actual horsepower.” - Gym Jones

Everything I advocate doing is biased toward performance – not muscle size or having a good-looking body. I'm more motivated in achieving power / strength, speed / explosiveness, and stamina / endurance. I'm motivated to be stronger, faster, and longer-lasting than others. I like to show up to any sport – even one I don't know how to play – and be one of the better players from sheer athleticism.

If you achieve above-average performance in strength / speed / stamina, you'll have an attractive physique. But not necessarily a physique for the magazines.

Your priorities will determine how you exercise. Muscle size is an indicator, but does not equate muscle strength. Competitive strongmen and powerlifters don't do bodybuilding shows. And professional bodybuilders only pose.

At the beginning to average levels, your muscles will grow as you get stronger. The difference between muscle size and strength isn't an issue until you must prioritize between muscular symmetry and continuing strength gains (it seems like a good problem to have, and at which point you'll be at an advanced level).

Body Types

Finally, my recommendations are for the vast majority of people who aren't built of a mesomorph body type. Mesomorphs are the people who were naturally buff all their lives. They easily pack on muscle. Their biggest challenge is the inherent laziness that comes with always having been stronger than other boys. Most of this type are overweight, but sturdy as a brick house.

This type – which comprises a very select few among the population – play by different rules given their genetics.

Compound Movements

“Keep it simple, stupid.” - KISS Principle

I only do the bread-and-butter weightlifting exercises. Compound means that the movement recruits muscle fibers in more than one body part. For example, the squat uses quadriceps, glutes, hamstrings, back, and core muscles. Bench press recruits chest, triceps, and shoulders.

The opposite of compound movements would be isolation exercises, which I don't do anymore. Isolation movements include arm exercises, flyes, shrugs, anything with the word 'curl' in it, etc.

Compound movements are more conducive to my functional fitness philosophy. These exercises train the body for strength you'll actually use. I've described each compound movement's function below. Conversely, isolation exercises train for strength that will rarely if ever be used.

I don't do arm exercises. I've found that the bicep and tricep muscles are sufficiently worked during compound movements. If you hold 250+ pounds in your hands for four sets of deadlifts, your biceps will get strong. And if you follow those deadlifts with four sets of rows and two sets of pullups, your biceps won't need any further work.

In principle, I believe isolation exercises have little or no use when considering functional fitness. And that's why football players don't do them.

Below is a list of my compound movements in order of importance.

Squats – the most important exercise. Using your legs to move something.

Bench – the most important upper-body exercise. Pushing something. (I prefer barbell, but dumbbells are good.)

Deadlifts – picking something up from the ground.

Rows – pulling something toward you. (I prefer barbell, but dumbbells are good.)

Dips – pushing yourself up from a surface. Body weight.

Pull-ups – pulling yourself up to a surface. Body weight.

That's it. That's all you need! Do these exercises hard and heavy for strength and big muscles.

Honorable mention:

Military / Shoulder Press – definitely a compound, functional exercise. I was born with broad, strong shoulders, so bench press and dips are enough work for my shoulder muscles.

Upright Rows - another shoulder workout, pulling instead of pushing.

Power Cleans – only a strength workout – they don't do much for size. But I think they're bad-ass.

Free Weights

I only use free weights – bars, dumbbells, and my body weight. I don't do anything with the word “cable” in it, or anything on a machine. There is certainly a benefit in those exercises, but less bang for the buck. I spend all my energy doing only the most profitable exercises.

I've heard that free-weight squats and the bench press recruit stabilizing muscle fibers – fibers that aren't used in exercises like leg press or Nautilus bench press. However, I've also heard an expert weightlifter testify that the machines nowadays are so well-designed that they force you to complete the repetitions with perfect form.

I'm not sure which argument has more merit, but I do know that free weights are more conducive to my philosophy of functional fitness. Free weights are already more convenient than any situation life will present. The bars fit nicely in your hands, and the plates allow for even loading on each side. It's already easy enough. There's no need for machines, cables, etc.

Heavy Weight

“Everybody wanna be a bodybuilder but don't nobody wanna lift this HEAVY-ASS WEIGHT!” - Ronnie Coleman

I've found that when lifting weights, the weights are supposed to be heavy. Very heavy. I aim for a weight I can only lift five times (5 reps). Nothing's wrong with sets of 6 – 8 reps. But I think that once you can do 10, you're not training for strength so much as endurance (unless you're on steroids). You can train for muscular endurance with calisthenics at home.

I think heavy weight is mandatory for muscle growth in body types like mine – the ectomorph. I must be lifting very heavy weight or I quickly slim down. Mesomorphs probably take greatest issue with this principle of mine.

I often hear women protest against the heavy weight principle. They say they don't want to get buff. Ladies, you should lift heavy weight too. You're not going to get buff. It's not in your biology. I suggest you try to get big and buff – it won't happen. Men spend blood, sweat, and tears to get buff – and some still don't. It's not something that's going to happen accidentally or inadvertently.

Lift heavy weight.

Whole-Body Workouts

This is another principle more specific to my ectomorph genes. However, I've read that whole-body workouts “elicit the maximal hormonal response” (credit Tim Ferriss).

I feel that, in the extreme example of 1 body-part / day workouts, my muscles shrink in the 4 – 6 days in between workouts. I prefer to hit all my muscles often – every other day. (Obviously, put at least 48 hours between whole-body workouts)

Note: this principle will not apply to guys using anabolic steroids. If you're using steroids, you don't need a maximal hormonal response because you're hormones are at a super-human level already.

Keep Workouts Less Than 1 Hour

The body goes into a catabolic state after about an hour of resistance training. That is, the body starts burning muscle to fuel those extra sets. I wish I'd have known this for the first several years of my fitness career. Like most people would, I thought harder work led to better results. My good buddy Craig and I used to work so hard for so long, thinking that hard work and supplements led to the best results.

To the contrary, I've learned that less is more. Work smart, not hard.

I actually finish my workouts in 30 – 40 minutes. I watch the clock and try to complete my work quickly. I spend about 2 hours a week in the gym. A lot of guys give me funny looks when they see me leaving long before them when I arrived after they did. But are they bigger or stronger than me? Rarely. I spend much more time training for speed and stamina than strength. And I'm pretty strong.

Note: this principle also does not apply to guys on anabolic steroids. I understand that, on steroids, recovery times are improved so they may not revert to a catabolic phase as quickly. By definition, anabolic is the opposite of catabolic.

Muscle Confusion

The muscles get accustomed to regular workouts. After a while, they don't work as hard to complete the workouts. Therefore, they're not breaking down or rebuilding bigger than before. This is why it's important to keep the muscles confused.

When switching to a different workout, you'll feel it the next day. I've noticed a difference when merely doing the same workout at a different gym with different equipment. It doesn't take much to confuse, but it's especially important in workouts like mine where there isn't much variety. Below are a few ways to trick the muscles:

Switch from barbells to dumbbells
Switch angles, grip, etc. – e.g., change bench to incline bench, change pullups (overhand) to chinups (underhand)
Do one week of 20-sets (I know this contradicts my heavy-weight principle, but it's only one week for confusion's sake)
Do one week of isolation exercises (confusion's sake)
Switch exercises – e.g., squat to leg press or lunges, bench to pullovers or weighted dips (again, just for confusion's sake on a short-term basis)

Abs / Core

I've only had very ripped abs once in my life – while boxing. I burned ~1000 calories every workout. I was also hitting weights and dieting – regularly eating laxative in an attempt to get down to 168 lbs. The key to magazine-cover abs is cardio and a super-strict diet. A lot of people insist on low-weight, high-rep crunches or low-rep, weighted situps. I don't have a strong opinion either way.

My favorite ab exercises are dead bugs. I learned about dead bugs from a college football player. Lie on your back with your hands stretched out above your head. Suspend your feet and hands two inches from the ground. This is the starting point. Touch your left toes to your right fingers. Then lower your left foot and right hand to the starting position. Now touch your right toes to your left fingers. This is one rep. Core strength. You'll feel it.

Tools

Gloves – If you care about keeping soft hands, use them. I never had soft hands to begin with so I don't care.

Wrist-wraps – These assist in holding weight that is too heavy for the hands to hold. When I first learned how to use wraps, I thought they were a godsend. Now I view them as a mixed bag. The negative effect of wrist-wraps is that your forearms don't get worked. Holding 250 pounds in your hands or holding your body weight from a pullup bar strengthens the forearms. At the same time, if your deadlift progress is being stunted because your hands can't hold the weight, your glutes and hamstrings will suffer. Those muscles can grow faster than the forearms. My solution to this dilemma is to not wear wraps for my first 2 sets of deadlifts, in which I do the reps in a slow and controlled fashion. I put on the wraps and increase the weight for my last 2, super-heavy sets that I can lift off the ground but can't hold in my hands.

Belt – Wear it for squats and deadlifts. I've thrown my back out a handful of times and it's the worst. One time was so bad I wasn't in the gym for months. Just wear the belt.

Supplements – I've tried creatine, NO2, glutamine, tribulus, fat-burners, and more. Some show results and some don't. My experience is that the ones that do work only work while you're using them. So I don't use any except protein powder, which I always have in the house. I don't even consider whey a supplement so much as food – a convenient way of ingesting protein. But since the benefits of the other supplements eventually vanish, my attitude is 'Why bother?'

Diet

There's a lot of literature on diet that you can read. I'm not going to add anything new. I'm actually a bad example as I'm prone to overeating greasy fatness. I love to eat too much. But these are some common sense bullet-points to take away.

If lifting weights, you need a lot of protein. 1 gram / pound of body weight is the industry standard. However, you can't eat six chicken breasts for breakfast and consider yourself set for the day. The body can only digest 30 – 50 grams of protein in one sitting. So you have to spread the protein infusions throughout the day.
Eat breakfast every day.
Eat fruits and vegetables.
Drink lots of water.
Alcohol is the most overlooked source of excessive calories.

Sample Workout

I'm always mixing my workouts up, but this is what I'm currently doing.

Day 1 - Push

Squat - 4 x 5 x 275 lbs
Bench - 4 x 5 x 185 lbs
Dips - 2 x failure
Rows - 2 x 6 - 8 for technique
Deadbugs - 2 x 10 - 15

Day 2 - Pull

Deadlift - 4 x 5 x 315 lbs
Rows - 4 x 5 x 185 lbs
Pullups - 2 x failure
Bench - 2 x 6 - 8 for technique
Knee Raises - 2 x failure

Note

I'm not interested in arguing about the best way to build strength / mass / power / etc. This is a suggested workout for beginners and busy people who want to be big and strong. Not people competing in Strongman competitions or trying to be the buffest body on the beach.

But nice comments are welcome, of course.

Memories of My Amsterdam Whores

noreply@blogger.com (Colin) — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 02:39:00 +0000

It recently occurred to me that I’d never written up my tales from the Red Light District in Amsterdam. They’re below. Nationalities include: Czech Republic, Phillipines, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Ghana, and Hungary.

I took my first trip outside America in August 2006. We spent 8 days in London and 2 in Amsterdam. I had recently gotten dumped by a girlfriend of 3 years, 1½ of which we lived together.

A good friend had earlier tried to persuade me to have sex with a prostitute. I was very much in love with the ex at the time so that wasn’t an option, but his compelling arguments made me curious. He likened it to a rite of passage for men. Paying for sex will make it seem so much less important. It’s just sex.

Newly single with love hangover issues, I fully intended to take advantage of Amsterdam’s Red Light District and complete my rite of passage.

Our first day in Amsterdam, I hit the Red Light District with one of my buddies while the other took an early-afternoon nap. We walked around on the pretext of checking it out, but I was shopping. The main Red Light District is 5 blocks along a canal just southeast of the central train station. Along the canal and the immediate side streets, about three blocks in each direction, are bars and sex industry establishments. Lingerie- or bikini-clad girls pose in glass doors under red lights.

It wasn’t long before we came upon a beautiful, slim girl with dirty blond hair. I told my buddy we should talk to her. She opened the door and I asked how much and what it includes. She was very nice and professional in answering my questions. I told my buddy that I was going to do it and he went back to the hotel alone.

I was very nervous. The most difficult concept for me to grasp was how to have sex with a girl with no foreplay. I had been thinking about sex as much as possible in walking around, but it’s still different to simply take your clothes off and be ready to go. My doubt was settled soon.

The girl led me through the glass door and immediately down about four steps. At the foot of the four stairs was a small room with a pseudo-leather bench (not couch), a sink, and bathroom. The girl was sweet. She told me she’s from Prague. She insisted on collecting the 50 euros before starting. I paid her and took my clothes off and sat down.

I may have been shaking a little. She had me lay down and put a condom on me. Then she sucked it hard, settling my previous doubt. They usually put a condom on it before touching anything. Then they suck it hard.

We had sex - missionary and doggystyle. I was nervous. I worked extra hard and started sweating.

After some time, she told me that my 20 minutes was up. If I wanted to continue, I would have to pay for another 20 minutes. She insisted that I pay before continuing. So I rifled through my pants, found my wallet and paid her 50 more euros. During the second session, I lost my erection. Towards the end of the second 20 minutes I gave up. I think she closed for the day after that.

I hit the street red-faced and dripping with sweat. A group of European tourists were looking at me. Looking at me, sweating while coming out of a whore’s lair. I felt weird for a second, but then realized this is the Red Light District. This is what happens.

I went to the hotel to take a nap. I was frustrated. I needed an orgasm. I couldn’t think about anything else. I woke up after an hour and headed back to the Red Light District.

I wasn’t looking for a skinny little cute girl this time. I needed an experienced professional.

I found a tall, Southeast Asian looking woman with big breasts. She was tall with a nice body. I say woman because she wasn’t in her 20s anymore, but still beautiful.

I went in. She told me she was from the Phillipines and I told her I was very nervous. She said that’s OK in a super-Asian accent. After paying, I took my clothes off. She seemed to first notice what I look like and said, “Ah, you are good-looking!” Thanks. I guess?

She didn’t go right for the condom. She climbed on top of me and hugged me, rubbing her body against mine. She said, “A little body-to-body.” She put her boobs in my face. I kissed and licked them and she said, “Yes, yes,” in a motherly voice.

I was ready to go by the time she went down to put the condom on. The Phillipine’s oral was unbelievable. A rhythmic, swallowing noise came from her mouth on each pump. She wasn’t at it long before I felt myself close to orgasm.

I took her by the shoulders and pulled her up. She sat on it and started to ride. I felt closer than ever so I turned her over for doggystyle. After a few pumps she said, “Easy…” I didn’t let up but it didn’t matter because I was already finishing. It was all over in less than five minutes.

It was an intense, blue-balls-alleviating orgasm. I let out a loud exhale and took a relaxed stance in the middle of her lair. She said, “Wow, you so nervous. But then you fuck so hard!”

In my after-buzz while putting my clothes on, I dropped and broke a glass marijuana pipe I’d brought from the States (sorry, Billy!). I was so relaxed I was almost dizzy. The girl got into her bikini and back in her window before I was even dressed.

I met up with the guys and told them about the Phillipine whore. I described her as motherly. A godsend. A real semen-extractor, that one. That’s all she was born for, extracting ejaculate. And she’s good at it, God bless her. The guys laughed.

We drank heavy that night. One buddy went to sleep and the other came with me for a quick tour through the Red Light District. The area’s much busier at night – and a little sketchier. But we discovered a new part west of the big canal, a prostitution zone a little removed from the beaten path Red Light District.

This is the low-rent area for value prostitutes. Almost all of them were black. A couple of them yelled “20 euros” at us as we walked by. This certainly isn’t their going price, but a special offer when it’s 4am and the guy’s handsome. We went back to the hotel after our brief tour but I made a mental note of the black section.

I was back in that area soon after breakfast the next day. I spent a long time walking around the low-rent part, which features a lot of girls who are at the end of their careers (or should be anyway), and it’s difficult to find a diamond in the rough working the lunch shift.

I finally found a gorgeous thickie inside a closed-in hallway of windows. “30 euros,” she said. After going in, she told me she’s from Dominican Republic. We switched to Spanish. She waited until after I had paid and got naked to tell me that 30 euros pays for missionary – not doggystyle. Bait and switch! Well, I’m not going to pay for a thick black girl and not bang her doggystyle. So I paid her 20 more euros and we got started.

Something strange happened during my blow job. There was a knock on the door. To my surprise, the girl stopped her work to answer it! The door was behind me on the right, so I didn’t see the dude outside. She took a cup from his hands and closed the door. She set the coffee cup on the nightstand and turned her attention back to me.

After it was all over, there was a light conversation while getting dressed. She told me I should visit Santo Domingo sometime. I agreed it was a good idea, thanked her, and left. Just like getting the oil changed.

I never would have believed it at that time, but I ended up in Amsterdam again just a year later. I was drinking in a bar with my cousin and his good friend. My cousin started telling his buddy about how I had recently returned from Brazil. The friend started asking about Europe and I started to explain London and Amsterdam. We got drunk and decided to go. A few weeks later, I was back in Amsterdam – for a week this time.

I was no longer suffering from love hangover, but the slut phase which follows. I was sticking it in everything I possibly could with as little commitment as possible. My Amsterdam Redux plan was to try to score with whatever was free every night and only bang whores as a last resort.

Well, the cousin and his buddy dragged me to a sex show in the Red Light District. A sex show is exactly what it sounds like – people having sex for a show. Live porn. It gets the juices flowing.

By the time we left the show, I had one thing on my mind. It was no longer my first time here so I wasn’t taking so much time to choose. I saw a thick, thick, thick light-skinned black girl on the main drag. Some Asian tourists were taking pictures of her from the other side of the canal. The girls usually close the curtain when cheesy tourists try to take pictures, but she had to hold the door open for me to enter. So she yelled, “Fuck you, motherfuckers!” That accent – something was familiar.

She’s from Brazil. I told her I was just in Brazil a few months ago. Cool! We went up a full flight of stairs. At the top was a large apartment with all the typical prostitution fixings. This was the biggest pad I’d seen yet. This girl may live better than most Dutch.

She had a beautiful face to go with her big body. She must’ve weighed 150 lbs – all boobs and butt and softness. Body just flopping around and spilling out everywhere. Technically overweight, yes, but she wore it well. Very sexy in my opinion. We got started.

At some point during doggystyle, I spanked her. She told me not to spank her. Her butt was so big that I had to massage each cheek in two different places in order to massage the whole cheek. Huge cheeks.

I pulled out momentarily and my jaw dropped. The condom was mangled. Shredded. It was barely sticking to me by the moisture and not even covering the dickhole. She turned around and saw it. She took it in her hand and paused, examining it. Then she threw it away and laid me down. She went to work with oral. Then she went to work with just her hands, her huge breasts weaving back and forth. I soon exploded and must have let out a loud grunt because she gave me a horrified look. I told her to keep going and she finished it off.

Despite the impression you may have from her yelling profanities at the tourists, this girl was quite sweet. She smiled a lot. She asked me where I was from. After telling her, she told me her husband lives in Los Angeles. Really? Cool, I used to live there. And your husband lives there. Interesting. I wonder how that works. We gave a warm, Brazilian hug and goodbye kisses before I left.

The next night, I was extremely wasted when I stumbled down a basement staircase facing the main canal near the street that leads to Dam Square. A scrawny, dark black woman opened her door and let me in. Again, woman because she wasn’t in her 20s anymore. She had a nice little apartment lair. It wasn’t as big as the Brazilian’s, but big enough.

This one was from Ghana with a slight accent. She had a gold tooth. Her sex style was interesting. She laid me down for oral. Then she straddled my chest and went down on me in a position so her ass was in my face. In addition to the meat and potatoes of a blow job, she used her other hand to rub my chode (the area between my sac and where the buttcrack starts). This was a first for me. It was pretty cool, almost painful in a good way. I bit her on her butt. She turned and looked at me.

She got up after 20 minutes and took a water break. I paid her 50 more euros for 20 more minutes.

This would be one of several breaks she took. She took breaks for water and to smoke her hash joint – a tobacco cigarette mixed with hash. She made jokes and cracked up hysterically, touching or rubbing my stomach every time she made a joke. She held the hash joint up to my lips and then offered me water.

We never spent too much time on hash and water. We’d get back to business, but I was pretty wasted so it wasn’t easy. I ended up paying her another 50 euros for 150 total. She told me that if I think I’m going to be an hour, I should pay 100 euros upfront. I didn’t know that, but I do now.

At one point during missionary I started strangling her. This was when she started yelping loudly with every pump. After she stopped yelping, we switched to doggystyle. At one point during doggystyle I must have hit something nice for her because she made a sound and then slapped my balls. She basically hit me in the nuts. It kinda hurt. But I let out a grunt of relief. And that’s when I learned that pain is an important part of any pleasure.

Still doggystyle, she eventually moaned “You gotta cum, baby.” (You gotta cummmm, baabyyyyyyyyy) She was running out of gas. She collapsed just as I was on the verge. I turned her over real quick and finished up during missionary.

She got up and said, “Whew, baby, what you been drinking?” I didn’t know – probably absinthe, beer, and whiskey. Weed. And hash of course.

This whore was a great time. If you’re going to be a sinner, don’t go half-way. Get a whore from Ghana with a gold tooth who rubs your tummy and hits you in the nuts and holds the hash joint for you and milks the prostate. That’s how you do it.

Not surprisingly, I found myself very drunk very late in Amsterdam again on that trip. I found my way to the Red Light District. Being the diversity advocate that I am, I was in the mood for a skinny white girl this time.

I settled on a very young-looking Hungarian on the main drag. She was probably 18 or 19. Before agreeing, I told her that I could only do it if she had water. I couldn’t have sex unless I had a drink of water. I was dehydrated from drinking all week, all day, and walking around. My mouth was dry. She was very eager in getting me inside.

She led me down a complete flight of stairs to an unfinished basement. It was big, but dank and musty. This place was a shithole. I had to drink water from a disgusting sink. I would’ve liked to drink more, but I stopped when my mouth wasn’t dry anymore because the faucet looked suspect.

All the other whores had a soft leather bench for sex, but this one had a cheap, little cot. She seemed exploited, but she was eager in trying to get me in the door. Oh well.

She started with killer oral. I got on top. I was inside her for no more than three pumps when she stopped me. She laid me down and started back with oral. I started thinking, what is this shit? I paid for sex, not just oral. What would be my recourse here? There’s no customer service department or Better Business Bureau for Red Light District sex workers. Who’s going to stand up for consumer rights?

Oh well, I let her do her work.

She gave me what may have been the best blow job of my life. She used this cool trick when her hands got tired – she tried to dig her tongue as deep as possible into the dickhole and wiggled it side to side, up and down, round and round. Very nice.

I had already paid for the hour and ended up needing it. She didn’t return to sex, but definitely earned her money. I’ll never forget how hard she worked on that thing. After finishing, she held her hands out like she couldn’t move her forearms at all.

I kinda felt bad as I was leaving, thinking about all I’ve read about prostitution from Eastern Europe. Especially in Russia and Ukraine, women are kidnapped and forced into prostitution. That’s ultimately how I met a good Russian friend of mine – she’s cute and her parents feared she’d be forced into prostitution so they sent her to the States. I wouldn’t think those types would be here in Amsterdam where it’s legal and regulated. But why would she be in that shithole when all the other girls had nice lairs? But if she were forced, why would she try so hard to get me in the door? Who knows?

These are the memories of my Amsterdam whores.

García Márquez and Love in Latin America

noreply@blogger.com (Colin) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:41:00 +0000

Buy Love in the Time of Cholera on Amazon.

Latin culture is the most romantic in the world. Is this good or bad?

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez is set in an unnamed town assumed to be Cartagena, Colombia and spans from the late 19th century – early 20th century. As a teenager, Florentino Ariza falls in love with Fermina Daza the first time he lays eyes on her. He embarks on a letter-writing campaign professing his love. She falls in love with him and they begin to write each other regularly. They plan a marriage and life together, without ever having spoken and behind the back of Fermina's overbearing, ambiguously-criminal father.

Fermina's father learns of the relationship and is infuriated, for Florentino is the illegitimate son of a shopkeeper. The marriage would run contrary to his plans of social-climbing by marrying his daughter off to blue blood. He grabs Fermina one day and takes her on a weeks-long trip through the Colombian countryside in an attempt to break the affair. The lovers keep a secret correspondence with the help of Fermina's cousin and make plans to marry when she finally returns.

When Fermina returns, she meets Florentino and impulsively ends the affair. Florentino is devastated. Fermina marries a promising young doctor who's just returned from a university in Paris. Florentino vows to have her someday despite the fact that she has just married. Dr. Juvenal Urbino and Fermina Daza have two children and lead a compatible life. Fermina's father's dream is fulfilled as the couple ascend to the town's social elite through the good doctor's public service and Fermina's beautiful grace.

The book begins with Urbino's death at an old age and proceeds to recount the characters' histories. While they led their perfect marriage of convenience, Florentino Ariza embarked on 622 affairs in hopes to distract the love burning in his heart – all the while waiting patiently for the good doctor to die so he could reclaim his precious Fermina. On the night of the good doctor's funeral, after all the mourners leave, the now 70-something Florentino says to Fermina: “I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century, to repeat to you once again my vow of eternal fidelity and everlasting love.” On the night of her husband's funeral. It was 51 years, 9 months, and 4 days after first professing his love to her as a teen. He knew the exact number because “not a day passed that something did not happen to remind him of her.” After some resistance, Fermina succumbs to Florentino and they live happily ever after sailing the Magdalena River.

Aside from the surrealism seen in all of Garcia Marquez' work and other Latino writers, the theme of love is unrealistically portrayed with a passion absent in other cultures.

In America, “dropping the L-bomb” is slang for when your significant other first says, “I love you” for the first time. I got just as many A-bombs (Te amo in Spanish) from one year in Peru as the previous 29 in America – 3. And one of the L-bombs in America came from a Brazilian exchange student. Now granted, the Peruvian women were surely enchanted with my gringo-ness, the dreams of visiting America and meeting my gringo relatives, the assumed life of security, and being seen by her family / friends being married to a big, handsome gringo. But the quick-to-love sentiment did not just apply to me. I was not special. Peruvian males I knew experienced the same thing, as I saw with my basketball teammates. And the females aren't the only ones quick to love. I saw my buddy Roy crying his eyes out for a girl he'd been dating for just a few months.

The passion for love is palpable. Almost every neighborhood in Latin America has a small park. And in every park on any night you see couples huddled up on all the benches – cuddling, kissing, talking and holding hands. Every park in every town. Public displays of affection are controversial to nobody. Latinos spend much more time in intimacy. The married couples I've gotten to know are different than typical American couples. The men seem to enjoy their wives' company. They're proud of their wives. They love their in-laws.

A higher percentage of Latin music is about love and relationships. There are certainly party songs and political songs, but love songs are more common. Even in reggaeton – Latin America's version of hip-hop – love is a more consistent theme than in American rap. If you look at pictures of reggaeton artists or hear the music and don't understand Spanish, you'd probably assume it's the same subject matter as in rap. But it's not. There's none of the misogynistic lyrics, the bitches and hoes, the player and pimp shit.

Contrast that with what you hear in American music. The most popular rapper of all time, Tupac Shakur, wrote one song in praise of women: Keep Ya Head Up. Ironically, it was released around the time he was convicted / in prison for sex abuse. His other songs professed that he'd never love a woman. Snoop said in '94, “We don't love them hoes.” And you probably have your own examples in your head right now.

Merely playing romantic music in America can be a cultural faux pas. I dig love songs. Probably because I wasn't desired by many women until well after puberty, I used to dream about love. I dreamed about loving a woman and having a perfect marriage, in which neither of us ever cheated and we had a ton of kids and lived happily ever after with no divorce. I built the idea up in my head just as Florentino Ariza did with Fermina Daza. I listened to R&B from a young age.

. But it ain't cool to play that music in gringo culture. My college buddies made fun of me. Or they'd yell at me to turn it off. It's gay (I never understood how songs about love between a man and a woman were gay, because “We don't love them hoes” seems gay to me).

On the other hand, I've seen a group of Colombian guys drink beer and whisky together all night while singing along to sensual ballads. One night I was drinking at a cafe when my buddy Miguel said, “Yo creo que una mujer es para amar.” I believe a woman is supposed to be loved. He wasn't trying to impress anybody; there were no girls at the table. Gringos don't talk like that.

Latinos don't usually say “tener sexo” - or 'to have sex'. They say “hacer amor” - 'to make love'. Saying “make love” in English is corny. Gringos don't talk like that. Gringos “play it cool.” They protect their hearts. They date casually and take it slow. They delay commitment. They try many different potential “partners.” This is considered wise, practical. I'll never forget when I was 16, a high school crush told me that she hates “mushy love shit.” You could search your whole life without finding a teenage Colombian girl say that.

Latinos say “gringo frio” - cold gringo. They say our culture is cold. It's a unanimous opinion. One Colombian girl, with a confused look on her face, asked me why gringos are like that.

My last girlfriend in Peru was an odd relationship. Milagros and I had sex the first night we met – including anal. Later 69, ATM, etc. Our entire relationship was spent in my apartment, plus a few times going to the local chicken joint when we were hungry. In relationships that follow this course in America, both the man and woman know exactly what the relationship is about – and more importantly what it's not about.

That understanding didn't exist in this case. After a month together, Milagros bought me an alpaca scarf and a cute Christmas card with a heart-felt message inside. Being romantically-inclined as I am, her passion for me attracted me to her more. We spent my last night in Arequipa cuddling. I miss her.

I posed the question at the start of this essay: Is this passion for love good or bad? What did Gabriel García Márquez believe? What was he really saying in Love in the Time of Cholera? Literary scholars began to point out that the story may be critical of such passionate love. When asked if his story was something other than a heart-warming tale about the enduring power of love, García Márquez was quoted as saying that readers “have to be careful not to fall into my trap.”

Look closer at the details of the story. The title uses the words “love” and “cholera” together. Cholera is a nasty, sometimes fatal sickness – and it's an ugly way to go out. Stories of cholera ravaging Colombia permeate the novel as often as stories of love. Is this meant to be a contrast of opposites, or an analogy of two diseases?

What happens because of love in the story? One character's lover allows him to commit suicide because she loved him too much to stop him. When Fermina writes Florentino that she'll marry him, he eats so many roses in a romantic euphoria that he vomits. In trying to treat his symptoms of love, Florentino has 622 affairs and contracted an STD on more than one occasion. One of his lovers was promptly murdered by her husband when he learned of the affair. His last affair as an old man was with a teenage second-cousin he was charged with taking care of while she was in town. When he broke off the affair to pursue Fermina, she committed suicide. And because of his life-long love, Florentino never had children.

Let's examine how Dr. Juvenal Urbino is the perfect contrast of the romantic Florentino Ariza. Dr. Urbino actually tells his wife that love is not as important to marriage as stability and compatibility. Through his stellar performance in transforming the town's health services and other public interests, the couple became beloved local celebrities. Many critics say that the novel deals with the challenges in Colombia (and all of Latin America for that matter) in implementing sound political systems, making societal progress, and developing healthy cultural attitudes. If this is true about García Márquez's intent, then Dr. Juvenal Urbino would be the story's hero. And love would be the antagonist.

The fact that García Márquez approved adapting the novel into a cheesy Hollywood love film skews his intent further. But moving past his intent, what's the truth about the utility of love?

Modern advances seen in the developed world require cold, hard intellect free of romantic delusion. Cold, calculating gringos have made some impressive societal advancements throughout history. And what about love? There is a seemingly much higher prevalence of brothels and prostitution in Latin America. I've met more than a couple married guys who openly told me they bang whores or have girlfriends on the side. Is cheating the key for men to remain happy in marriage? Can love ever be absolute?

Am I really the romantic I think I am? I had various other women during my relationship with Milagros. In addition to the ATM and sex-on-the-first-night factors, I never put much stock into our relationship because of her age – 20. My cold gringo nature, the natural skeptic / realist inside told me that she's way too young. She's not going to love me forever. She's going to want another man within five years. It would never work. And if she ever pooped out a kid that didn't match my DNA in a mandatory blood test, I'd leave her ass penniless in Peru. Nobody wants that.

Aside from my basic gringo tendencies in love and coldness, I am a romantic. I prefer life here. The passion is refreshing. Exciting. Invigorating. I love it. But a balance is surely needed.

Fun facts:

Gabriel García Márquez won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982
One Hundred Years of Solitude (also by Gabriel García Márquez) is one of Bill Clinton's favorite novels
Gabriel García Márquez convinced Colombia's own Shakira to produce 3 tracks for the movie
Gabriel García Márquez was once very close to fellow Latin American literary giant, Mario Vargas Llosa from Peru. One night in 1976, Vargas Llosa punched García Márquez at a cinema in Mexico city. The two have been rivals for the 30+ years since. Here's the story.
Buy Love in the Time of Cholera on Amazon.

The movie trailer:

Going Back to AA

noreply@blogger.com (Colin) — Mon, 25 May 2009 17:09:00 +0000

I'm going back to AA. Jesus. Kill me.

My problem with AA is that the degree of degenerates and losers that these people were before joining AA makes me feel like I'm not an alcoholic. If you've never been, an AA meeting is basically a round-table discussion where people talk about how much better their lives are now that they're sober and they couldn't do it without AA. They tell horror stories from their drinking / using days.

All their stories go something like this: some guy had just gotten his seventh DUI, his wife and kids left him, he had ten dollars to his name and so he bought a bottle of cheap vodka. I'm not exaggerating at all. I heard that story. You hear a few stories like that and you think, “I'm not one of these people.” What do I have to say? What are my problems? I get bad hangovers. I get depressed. And sometimes I have sex with girls that I wouldn't if I weren't drunk. Big fucking deal, right? Join the club.

I am a functional drunk. I can get completely wasted at home alone. The next day I'll go to work, get things done, and come off just as professional and effective as anyone else. When I was bartending, I would sometimes show up to work drunk (on St. Patrick's Day or other holidays) and perform my job just as always. Nobody would notice. I (usually) stay out of trouble, I'm nice to people, and I always make it home safely. No problems. However, given my current situation, I want to spend some time sober and I don't think I can do it alone. I need AA.

In 1997 I was convicted of '2nd degree burglary' and 'Stealing over $150' – two felonies in the state of Missouri. In 1998 I was sentenced to 3 years in prison on a 'suspended imposition of sentence' (SIS), which means the sentence only takes effect if I violate probation. So, in effect, I got 5 years' probation. My best friend George, who didn't calm down from our wild ways in between our arrests and our sentencing, didn't get probation. He ended up serving over a year in prison. His first night in prison was the true story from the ending of Lock & Sock: Based on a True Story.

In the days after the sentencing, I remember thinking: “How the hell am I going to go 5 years with no police trouble?” At that point in my life, it was inconceivable. I was involved in nonsense trying to be a thug on the streets of South St. Louis. Police trouble was a given. My dad had kicked me out and I was living with a girl who worked at a strip club and her 3-year old daughter. I was selling weed out of the apartment.

One night the police had me cornered on the street, drilling me with questions. They thought I was selling heroin. If they had entered the apartment, they would have found enough marijuana to charge me with a felony. My prison sentence would have become a reality. The next day I was throwing an acid party when my mom called. High on LSD, I realized my lifestyle wasn't sustainable. My mom invited me to live with her in Arizona. I agreed. I didn't tell anybody my decision. I just disappeared from the apartment one morning. The 3-year old girl watched me go.

I spent over a year sober in Arizona, working and earning credits at community college. Life was work and school. And a few AA meetings, but I didn't bother with the steps. I started weightlifting (honestly, weightlifting and boxing were positive byproducts from my fear of going to prison and getting punked by buff niggaz). On the whole, Arizona was an uneventful time and I had no friends, but it was crucial to my personal development, specifically in how to lead a normal life free of crime. That was 1999. It's been ten years. I need another period of sobriety in the interest of personal development.

Unlike in Arizona, my current situation is different. I'm not faced with the possibility of battling prison niggaz for respect. I've learned to live within the confines of the law. I've learned how to get very drunk on a regular basis while adhering to societal interests. I've graduated from being an anti-social drunk to a productive drunk. But I want more. I need a boost in productivity.

After Arizona, I returned to St. Louis and enrolled at UMSL. I also returned to drinking, but (almost) no drugs. I joined a fraternity in an attempt to become a normal, middle-class white guy. It worked for a while. I got involved. I went to Washington DC in August 2001 for a fraternity convention. On my first night, I got so drunk that I broke my leg in a bar – the fibula bone just above my ankle. By sheer coincidence, I was helped through the Dulles airport by a woman in AA and I decided to go sober again.

I lasted about four months while becoming active in the fraternity and climbing the leadership ranks. I credit my sobriety in this period to my successful election as president of the fraternity in 2002 (I also credit the classic Dale Carnegie book, How to Win Friends and Influence People).

I returned to drinking just before being elected and continued through graduation and the beginning of my career. I had a 3-year relationship with a wonderful girl named Anne-Marie, who I wrote about in An Open Letter To My Ex-Girlfriend. After she left me, I drank more. About a year after she left me, I got depressed. I went to an AA meeting with a friend from school. At that first meeting, I went to the bathroom after a speech and cried for a few minutes.

To this day, I have no idea why I was crying. I didn't relate to the speaker's story, I don't even remember it. And I generally don't cry. I never cry since my dad used to scream at me before I went through puberty and was simply too weak to endure it. But now, in this AA meeting with no imminent danger, I had to go to the bathroom and cry for a minute. WTF?

I went about a month in March 2007 without a drink, attending AA meetings and focusing on gaining mass. I packed on 10 lbs of muscle that month. I booked a flight to San Francisco for a few days during my Spring Break (I was a student). I read The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson on the flight. And I got drunk in San Francisco. And off the wagon.

I finished school and moved to Peru in 2008. Around October 2008, I stumbled upon Henry Rollins' life story. Henry Rollins was the front-man of hardcore punk band, Black Flag. Henry Rollins has always been sober. An interesting quote of his: “Keep the blood clean, the body lean, and the mind sharp.” I was inspired to quit drinking again. (Read Rollins' classic essay on weightlifting, Iron)

I went six weeks sober (without AA). I was busy writing and pursuing various interests outside of drinking, like seeing historic monasteries and climbing mountains. A good friend's going-away party was scheduled in that period and I didn't drink. She teased me all night that I was boring.

I was doing well sober. A friend in the States emailed me, saying that her brother would be coming to my town in Peru and I felt pressure to go out drinking for his sake. But to be completely honest, I started drinking again because I needed a woman and didn't know how to find one if I wasn't out drinking. It wasn't long before I met a precious little Lolita. However, I didn't stop drinking just because I had a squeeze.

In summary, I've had four periods of sobriety in my life since childhood:

~1½ years in Arizona rehabilitating in fear of prison
4 months in the fraternity after breaking my leg
1 month as a grad student in AA while depressed
6 weeks in Peru while inspired by Henry Rollins

I want a significant personal development stretch like each one of these was, but on a long-term basis like the Arizona phase when I learned how to get along with society. That time laid the groundwork for how I got through five years' probation (5 YEARS!), seeing a P.O. every month. They look at your paycheck stubs to make sure you're working, examine your school schedule, and of course monitor any trouble with the police. You have to ask for permission to travel more than one county away. Interstate travel must be submitted in writing. Any time you see your P.O, he or she can “drop” you. They require you to take a urine analysis for drugs. I MADE IT 5 YEARS THROUGH THAT SHIT!!! My entire undergraduate career.

In Peru, I had drunken adventures and fucked a lot of girls that I wouldn't have without alcohol. Now I'm in Colombia.

I have no friends. I don't know anyone. I don't have a “real job.” It's easy to pass the nights in my apartment drinking. I don't want to do that anymore. I want to do healthy things that inspired my last sobriety stretch. I want to get jacked up on coffee while working on my writing. Or maybe be a generally intense dude like Henry Rollins. And I need to work on my new business deals.

I'm going back to AA.

When it all comes down to it, I don't want to be like my old man. Don't get me wrong, he's been a great dad, my primary role model in life, and he's always there for me. And I'd be a great man if I achieve what he has. But at the same time, I think that people ought to rise above what they were given in life. And I think that if I'm going to achieve more than my father has, the secret to success lies in not drinking.

Plus, I don't want to be like the old man. God bless him, but he hits the bottle almost every day. I don't want to be in my fifties and making 40oz cocktails made with half liquor before it's dark outside. The guy yelled at me like no other when I was a kid. I used to be proud of having a tough old man, and for being emotionally tougher than others my age. But I'm recently realizing that it may have given me lack-of-confidence issues. The man used to scream at me until I cried – when I was just a boy.

Two obstacles to my quitting drinking:

Alcohol is a major part of who I am
I rely on alcohol to meet women

It sounds weird, even pathetic, but alcohol is a big part of my personality. I'm a loud, wild drunk. A clown. I'm the life of the party, the center of attention. It's who I am, it's how I see myself and how others see me. I won't be just quitting drinking for this to succeed. I'll have to fundamentally change my personality, which may be harder than quitting drinking.

Also sounds weird, even pathetic, but I don't talk to women if I'm not drinking. I once heard a guy rationalize his own drinking and smoking marijuana by saying that it dumbed him down to the point where he could find women interesting. Sorry ladies, I know this is terribly offensive, but I almost agree. I love women, but on an affectionate / cute basis. I rarely find myself at all interested in women's ideas or opinions. So I have to drink to meet them, to carry conversations, and to establish affectionate relationships. If I'm going to succeed, I'm going to have to learn how to create substantive relationships with women - without alcohol.

I probably shouldn't have this attitude going in, seen in the first paragraph on this post and in a recent Twitter post: “I'm going back to AA. Somebody please kill me.” It's a tough decision, but I am looking forward to sobriety.

Old-school Black Flag performance of "Rise Above"

My Big Date with Ben Casnocha

noreply@blogger.com (Colin) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:11:00 +0000

I recently met Ben Casnocha for a date at his hotel in Bogotá. Ben Casnocha is an entrepeneur and author, a heavyweight in the blogosphere, and an intellectual. He is a regular guest on NPR's Marketplace and contributes articles for The American. His blog is here. His bio here. His book can be found here. His company here. His Delicious page here. He is only 21!

I found his blog a few months ago and was humbled by how smart, mature, and accomplished he is at such a young age. I follow him on Twitter (here). In March, he tweeted that he would be in Colombia soon. I re-tweeted that I was moving to Bogotá April 3. He replied that he would still be in town and maybe we could meet up. He also mentioned that he looked at my expat blog and noted it was "very entertaining." He asked if I ever worry about STD's (haha). We agreed to meet his last night in the lobby of his hotel.

That night at dinner with Ryan and Fabien (who were both in town), I started writing down questions for the big date . After dinner, I ran to my hotel. I briefly worried that Ben may have sent me a cancellation email. I showered, shaved, and brushed my teeth. I put on my nicest dress shirt, a white Burberry button-down with yellow stripes, along with my cleanest jeans and dress shoes. I grabbed a bottle of Peruvian Maca tablets for a gift and ran out the door. I stepped out of my no-frills, $8 / night hotel in La Candelaria and passed all the junkies and sketchballs on my voyage to Ben's nice hotel by the airport. I stopped by Ryan's and Fabien's hostel to borrow a camera. They joked about how I put on a collared shirt for my big date. I got the camera and left, arriving at Ben's hotel forty-five minutes early. He had an early flight so I assumed he would end our date after an hour. I sat at a table, monitoring every hallway and looking at every person who passed through. After about twenty minutes, I recognized Ben leaving the gym, drenched with sweat. I greeted him. He said he was going to take a shower. While I waited downstairs, I paced back and forth in nervous anticipation. Ben came down and we got a table in the hotel restaurant. He ordered a pasta and I ordered nothing. I told him I already ate, which I had, but the truth was that I didn't even want to look at the menu due to my brokeness and what the prices would look like.

I didn't think Ben would be pretentious based on our email exchange, but I didn't expect him to be so interested in me. I couldn't ask any of my questions for the first half hour because he peppered me with questions first. What do I read? What blogs do I follow? What did I study? How did I decide on this Latin American life? What do I do? What did I do? What am I doing with this writing thing? Etc. As I said, I thought Ben would give me an hour. We talked from 9:30 - 11:30. Besides being smart, Ben Casnocha is nice and down-to-earth, chock full of decency. He asked me great questions. In two hours, I think he has me accurately sized-up. We covered some interesting subjects.

After getting warmed up, Ben's questions got around to the sexual nature of some of my Expat Chronicles posts (like Sauna in Peru, Nasty Follow Ups, or Peruanas' Gringo Desire Reaffirmed). He asked what is meant by my tagline, "sexually-frustrated, alcoholic gringo in Latin America." Specifically, sexually-frustrated. The truth: it's a slogan meant to entice people to click through to the blog. I'm not really sexually-frustrated. I'm love-frustrated. He asked if I had read Neil Strauss' The Game. I haven't. He asked if I followed any of the pickup artists' blogs. I don't, and I am not a pickup artist. In fact, I think my game is below average. I'll often go out and not hit on a girl all night.

Ben asked why I aim for many partners. I don't know, maintenance? Maybe it makes me feel like more of a man. He asked if I tell the girls that I'm not faithful. I don't. Ben is very STD-averse. He asked if I'd been tested. I told him I'd go as soon as it burns when I pee. He pointed out that some STD's can be transmitted through condoms and some carriers never show symptoms. 1/4 of American women and 1/3 of New York City women have herpes. I told him I probably have it then. He recommended getting tested just to know where I stand. But, he said, if I test positive for something, then I am in a difficult predicament: would I tell women about it? Good question, Ben! I would like to think I would, but I know I wouldn't at least once. What happened to me? I used to be a decent guy, and I still consider myself to have a decent heart. But something has changed along the way.

One of my first questions for Ben was about reading. The man aims to read 100 books / year! I would consider it a good year if I put down 25. How can the man possibly read so much? I asked how much time he spends reading every day. Blogs, news, books, everything. He estimated an hour and a half plus all the flights he takes. That doesn't seem like enough time, I said. He said he flies a lot. And he reads fast. He doesn't speed-read, but he reads fast. He reads the first and last sentence of each paragraph closest and skims sometimes. I forgot to ask him what he thinks of Tim Ferriss' (author of The 4-Hour Work Week) recommendation of a Low-Information Diet, in effect choosing to not read so much in order to focus on more important things. But I assume that Ben would wholeheartedly disagree.

Because of a few interesting posts and book recommendations, I asked Ben about his religion. From what I've read, I couldn't tell where he stands. He replied, "I'm a non-believer." I probed him to discern if he were closer to agnostic or atheist. He doesn't like the word 'atheist' because of the dogmatic atheists like Christopher Hitchens, American Atheists, and the like. Ben isn't trying to convert anybody, but he believes there is no God. I consider myself more agnostic. I have no idea what God or the point of life is.

Ben wrote a great review of a book that had a profound effect on me: I am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe (Wikipedia entry here). That novel is an accurate slice-of-life work about the American college experience in the 21st century. I credit it with my realization of the superficiality of Greek life as well as the pointlessness of watching sports. Ben's review pointed out an angle I didn't see, how Charlotte was initially strong enough to resist tempation to fit in, or to go with the flow, in her rural hometown. But she succumbed in the face of the prestigious Dupont University (loosely based on Duke).

Ben's review struck a chord with me because, like Charlotte, I was a prodigy student early on. However, I wasn't comfortable being a nerd. I never resisted the tempations. I got into trouble and played down my intelligence to fit in / seem more normal. I asked Ben how he got his confidence to resist conforming. He said being comfortable in your own skin is hard, but it always came natural to him. He was quite athletic / jockish early on, and that helped. I mentioned that maybe my parents' early divorce affected me. While he agreed that can happen, he contended that the biggest influence our parents have on us is at conception. He thinks upbringing is highly overrated. He recommended I read Blank Slate by Steven Pinker, which supports that assertion.

Also overrated (not Ben's words) is higher education in America. I told him that I've come to the conclusion that, especially if you read like Ben does, college may be a waste of time. The guy's company was a success while in high school, so I imagine even finishing his diploma was a pain in the ass. His book published when he was 19. I think if you're going to be an entrepeneur, and you're dedicated to learning informally, you may save the time and money of a formal education. I may have learned just as much from books and newspapers as I have from a classroom setting. Ben completed three semesters at Claremont McKenna, studying political science. He doesn't know if he'll finish. One beef he has with higher learning is the censorship of ideas. Where these institutions purport to support the free reign of thinking, politically incorrect ideas are often shut down by the academia powers-that-be. For example, any discussion of affirmative action (that it might not work) wouldn't be tolerated. Another example was the backlash against former Harvard president Larry Summers for suggesting that there may be a genetic difference between male and female brains which inhibit women from going into engineering and science. Ben thinks it's a shame that these kinds of ideas have to be developed at think-tanks and in the blogosphere. Where does Ben fall politically? He voted for Bob Barr (Libertarian), but he would have voted for Obama if California were in play. I would have voted for Obama if I thought it were worth my time.

Going along with Charlotte Simmons, and the confidence to go your own way and be a nerd, I wondered something about Ben that I couldn't quite phrase. The way I asked it was something like, "Do you think you're missing out on anything by skipping the gutter side of life?" To accomplish what he has, you have to lead a relatively squeaky-clean life. For example, by the time I was his age, I had tried most drugs, committed a slew of various crimes and been in a few different jails, and flirted with danger in other adventures. Ben has never used a recreational drug (not even marijuana!). He said he's obviously missing something in life, but the question is whether that's worth it or not. He said he'd be mildly interested in that side of life. I told him some of my stories, none of which I think are more extreme than what's out there. My First KO in Peru, The Cusco Incident, any of the brothel stories, the time I went to jail high on LSD, or the time I went to jail in South Carolina and almost got in a fight with the biggest, blackest dude in there. Or one of the best days of my life: eating mushrooms and seeing the museums in Amsterdam. In retrospect, I don't think I asked this question to see what he thought about the wild side. I think I asked this to see if he thought that kind of wild side is compatible with the kind of success he has enjoyed. Because my wild side is natural in me, and I wonder if it's incompatible with as stellar of a career as Ben's. I think I'm doomed.

Conclusion

Ben's intelligence is intimidating (I've never felt that from anybody). He asks questions that show how quickly he understands you. As I was riding in the taxi back to my hotel, I felt like I talked twice as much as he did. How the hell did that happen? When reading his blog posts, I would think how much I would love to sit down and pick his brain and learn what I could. And now I just had the chance, and I ended up talking more than listening. What does this mean? When it comes to a thirst for knowledge, or an active mind, nobody is hungrier than Ben Casnocha.

My Race Essay: What Whites Say Behind Blacks' Backs

noreply@blogger.com (Colin) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 21:32:00 +0000

US Attorney General Eric Holder recently said that Americans are “cowards” in respect to race relations.

“Holder Calls U.S. a ‘Nation of Cowards’ on Racial Discussion”

www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a3AqLScZj7_U&refer=home

Holder's right. But he's not talking about black people being the cowards in talking about race (ever seen Kings of Comedy?). He’s talking about us, confrontation-averse white people. So this is my essay on race. In not being cowardly, I’m not going to subject it to a market test among my black friends. This is going straight to publish.

I am from St. Louis, MO – a city with a significant black population – and I’ve had black friends all my life. I've had black roommates. Growing up, I was often called a "wigger." Somewhere in college, I lost my "wigger" tendencies in speech, mannerisms, and clothes. Still, black people have often told me that I am not "a typical white boy" or that I am "black on the inside" – this always makes white guys feel cool. I share stereotypical black tastes in three areas: women, cars, and music. I participated in two black-dominated sports: basketball and boxing. I guess I say these things in an attempt to establish credibility that I am not racist. I want to tell a few stories concerning race in America and one of its most segregated cities – St. Louis, MO.

The first story goes back to my first day of 2nd grade. My class was in the bathroom after recess. I don't remember the reason, but I was going to fight another student named Marlon Stone, who is black. I had just seen The Karate Kid and I put my hands up with my fingers curled in just like Daniel-san did. I knew nothing about karate and, in hindsight, I had no idea at all what I was doing. Marlon said "Oh, you wanna do karate?" and proceeded to kick me and punch me and beat me up in front of the whole class. When we left the bathroom, he asked me if I wanted to race getting a drink of water. I was a little resentful and not wanting to be friends. After getting water, he asked me if I wanted to race from the water fountains back to the classroom. From that day on, Marlon and I were best friends. We were also the primary troublemakers in our classroom and the entire 2nd grade.

I was always singled out by teachers as being exceptionally smart (before drugs anyway). So it didn't make sense to Mrs. Schlafly that I would be the class clown. It also didn't make sense that I would be best friends with Marlon Stone. This is 1986, an entire generation back in our cultural progress. During some parent-teacher conference, the fact that I was friends with Marlon Stone became a big controversy to my parents, teachers, and others. Marlon was almost the focal point of my behavioral problems. I have no idea what ever happened of Marlon Stone. He might not even remember me today. I only remember his name because of how big of a deal it was that I was friends with Marlon Stone. Time would later tell that I didn't need any help from black people in being a troublemaker. I was very capable of being a despicable piece of shit all by myself. But that story should illustrate to skeptical white people that there is covert racism that exists in the back of our minds. Marlon was expected to be a bad guy. I wasn’t.

In 2nd grade, I could be best friends with someone like Marlon Stone. All the students played and sat together back then. But somewhere along the line, 5th or 6th grade, the white and black students started to segregate themselves. Lunch tables became all-black or all-white. Maybe the years of cultural differences added up and kids seek out similar kids. Or maybe something about puberty changes things. With few exceptions of people like me and the kind who end up hanging out in diverse neighborhoods, this self-segregation trend never reversed.

Back to what Eric Holder said (which is 100% true by the way). Many white people – including myself – are too polite, intimidated, guilty, or indifferent to communicate as strongly as they feel about race. Obama's race speech following the Jeremiah Wright controversy was hailed by media pundits, but it did not gain him any ground among rank and file white people, especially working class whites. One such uncle of mine noted that the speech was “bullshit” and America is generally an "equal opportunity country." I wouldn’t go that far, but this is how most white people feel and I think the truth is somewhere in the middle.

In my school, there was no systematic exclusion of the black students from excelling in academics. Most of the black students excluded themselves. Whether they chose to make beats on the table, roll dice and play pencil-break, draw pictures of the perfect box (popular haircut of the early 90s), claim gangs and act tough, or whatever, studying hard was not a widespread activity. Two white friends of mine attended Hazelwood East, which was 90% black. However, their senior calculus class didn't have one black student in it. Also hailing from St. Louis is the R&B singer Fantasia, who revealed to the world that she was illiterate despite having graduated high school.

This is how white people and myself see Fantasia’s situation: her school probably sucked but her illiteracy is not the system's fault. If you can't read, that is your problem. You must be trying not to learn. She must have gone out of her way for years to avoid learning this basic skill. Blame her or her parents, but don't blame society for a lack of common sense and responsibility. As a slave in the 19th century, Frederick Douglass learned to read despite it being illegal for him to learn or for anyone to teach him. We’re supposed to feel sorry for Fantasia? She didn’t even try! Obama stated in his 2004 DNC keynote address that black youth need to stop thinking that reading and studying is "acting white." Getting good jobs and access to upper society doesn’t come without hard work and study. I would love to be working at a top tier consulting firm in New York or Boston, but I did drugs in high school instead of studying hard. I don’t complain about the lack of opportunity. I fucked it up myself.

I have a theory to explain why blacks often suffer discriminatory treatment in society. From my experience in the restaurant service industry, servers and bartenders will tell you that black people don’t tip. This is bullshit. I used to argue that the average gratuity percentage of all black customers, while certainly lower, is not much lower than the average percentage from all white customers. The difference is negligible given low gratuities from rural white people and elderly white people. But those ghetto white people aren’t such a pain in the ass. They’re in and out. Servers don’t remember them. Nor do servers remember the nice black family that was easy to take care of and left 20%. They remember the ghetto black table that sent back their food for trivial reasons, asked for free samples, complained to a manager, or were a major pain in the ass in some other way while not leaving a tip. The treatment I have gotten from ghetto black tables is simply unconscionable. You don’t get that from any other kind of people. Only black ghetto. Even black servers don’t want to wait on black tables. I was the guy that used to argue that waiting on blacks is not as bad as people make it out to be. And even I would get a feeling in my stomach when I saw a black table sit down in my section. Just the chance that this black table could be a black ghetto table could completely ruin my night. That feeling is uncontrollable. You can’t teach someone not to feel what has been conditioned into their system through experience, like a dog getting its face rubbed in shit after pooping in the house.

Whether it’s different treatment in restaurant service, car rental offices, hiring practices, or most notably by the police, my theory attempts to explain this phenomenon. A significant percentage of black people are ghetto. “Ghetto” is the term I will use, but I want to use “triflin’.” When I say “ghetto,” I don’t mean poor. I mean triflin’. This significant percentage is actually a minority (I estimate about one third), but significant enough and triflin’ enough to fuck it up for all black people. My theory is that discriminatory treatment stems from those practitioners trying to thwart or discourage the triflin’ behavior of the ghetto segment. Imagine how police officers, whose exposure to black ghetto must be much higher, could come to treat all black people. Unfortunately, non-ghetto black people are often subject to the backlash against ghetto black people when they are not to blame. They are being treated unfairly. In my view, one third of the black population is fucking it up for everybody.

I can’t think of how normal, mainstream black people can disassociate themselves with the ghetto segment in order to receive normal treatment. The black ghetto segment is so triflin’ that the mere presence of a black person can cause worry in worrisome types. The black ghetto segment simply has to change if race relations are ever going to normalize. Mainstream black people have to cut off and discourage this ghetto segment. I know this goes against what seems right, siding with “the man” against their people. It was a cultural necessity for all black people to be united to fight for civil rights or they never would have won. However, that time has past. The gains sought aren’t hard, tangible, political gains anymore. They are soft gains. The time for unity has past because the whole of black people no longer wants to be treated like ghetto black people. Unconditional unity is why the ghetto segment is allowed to be so triflin’. And that triflin’ behavior is why non-ghetto black people suffer discrimination. Remember when Jesse Jackson said “I want to cut [Obama’s] nuts off” for “talking down to black people,” referring to Obama’s speech urging black men to be better fathers? Jesse Jackson = part of the problem. Obama = part of the solution. Al Sharpton = part of the problem. Bill Cosby = part of the solution.

Any discussion of race relations in the US would not be complete without mentioning the physical differences between blacks and whites. On average, black people are stronger and more athletic than white people. That is not to say that there aren't exceptionally athletic white people and exceptionally un-athletic black people. It's just to say the average. Some white racism is definitely attributable to the average difference in power, speed, strength, height, vertical jump, penis size, etc. However, this is not a lasting dynamic or insurmountable obstacle to improving race relations.

One night I was wasted in Delmar Lounge and started dancing with a hot black girl. We were doing more grinding than dancing. Despite her black friends trying to get her away from me, she kept coming back to me for virtual sex on the dance floor. Two of the guys stood on either side of us and just stared at us humping each other. One of them said to me, “You love that black pussy, don’t you? Get that shit, black man.” I think when those roles can be reversed – when a couple white guys can watch a black guy and white girl and say, “Get that shit, white man” – when that happens and nobody gets mad, race relations will be normalized. That is where we need to be. There is still a long way to go.

Cheers to Eric Holder!

Gringo Business Culture for Latinos

noreply@blogger.com (Colin) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 04:56:00 +0000

This is an essay I wrote for an assignment to get certified to teach English. This open-ended assignment allows me to analyze any subject from the textbook. I chose a subject (culture) not related to language because it's less boring. Essay below:

In this essay, I want to address what I view as the part of the Business English text that is most relevant to doing business in America. American professionals will overlook minor errors in written or spoken English from an international. However, cultural missteps can damage relationships or otherwise communicate unintended messages. These cultural factors are those that present the greatest discrepancies between US and Latin American business cultures.

Time – American culture follows a monochronic time orientation, as opposed to the polychronic orientation in Latin American countries. Americans say things like “time is money” and “don’t waste time.” This particularly applies to deadlines. In America, deadlines are literally how they sound. Think about what “dead” and “line” mean. Those words don’t suggest that an agreed-upon time or date is adjustable with changing circumstances. If a project or payment isn’t made by the deadline, Americans will expect an explanation why it’s late. Deadlines are much more important in monochronic cultures. Keep in mind when conducting business in monochronic cultures, Americans value time and are not as tolerant of delays.

Punctuality – Punctuality goes along with time-orientation. Look at meeting times as deadlines. Don’t be late. If you are late to a meeting, Americans expect an apology.

Status – Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal.” This is a cornerstone of the American psyche – that no citizens are inherently better or of higher standing than others. In the English language, there is no translation for the word “usted.” It was difficult for me at first, in my Spanish-speaking company, to address certain superiors as “usted” (instead of “tu”) with the agreeing verb form. In English, there is only “you.” There is no special pronoun for people of higher status. Executives and other ranking professionals need not be offended in America if they are not treated with extra respect. Cab drivers or restaurant servers will treat professionals with the same amount of respect as individuals from lower social classes. And customers will likewise treat servers with respect. Executives from Latin America should keep in mind that they are not being insulted. But rather, all people are generally treated with the same respect in America.

Interpersonal Relationships – Americans don’t place as high a value on relationships. While there is certainly a place for building rapport, remember that they believe “time is money.” American professionals can use blunt and direct language. This is normal. Do not take offense. After acclimating to Peruvian culture, I attended a sales show in the States and was a little surprised at how blunt some buyers were. Some meetings lasted less than two minutes. Saving time and moving on can take precedence over building relationships.

Greetings – Gender roles are different in America. In business, gender roles are even subject to law. Men: do not kiss women when greeting them. Women: do not kiss men when greeting them.

Gratuities – In America, many workers earn their living through gratuities as opposed to wages. Not leaving a sufficient gratuity can be insulting and make a bad impression with business colleages. Most important are restaurant servers / bartenders and taxi drivers. Servers and bartenders earn 15 – 20% of the bill’s total. Taxi drivers earn 15% of the fare.

The Legacy of George W. Bush

noreply@blogger.com (Colin) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 01:47:00 +0000

I want to look back and take stock of George W. Bush’s impact and future legacy. I disclose that I was on the Obama train but I supported Bush in both of his elections. I guess this essay may assert to the majority out there that, historically, Bush wasn’t as bad as it seems now. And to the tiny minority of you who still support the man, I want to demonstrate that he certainly wasn’t all good. As our country is currently engaged in two wars and the worst economic recession since the Great Depression, a liberal Democrat won a landslide victory to lead his party to an even greater majority in the executive and legislative branches for a different direction in leadership.

Drew emailed me this pic to illustrate his joy over the change in governance. He represents the historic 80% approval Obama enjoys upon entering office.

Legacies

George W. Bush’s approval ratings fell to as low as the high 20s before rising to the mid 30s recently – the standard bump a president gets before leaving office. There has been much talk about Bush’s sour legacy. Bush himself has attempted to mediate this image in recent weeks. It would be hard to make the argument that his legacy will be as bad as current public opinion despite the statement from noted historian, Ludacris, that Bush was “the worst of all 43 presidents.” However, the Bush review will not be all-positive despite his wildest ambitions.

Presidential legacies, by nature of being determined by the masses, are subjective and irrational. Many presidents aren’t credited for their substantive effects. JFK’s and LBJ’s legacies illustrate this perfectly. JFK enjoys iconic stature, a liberal champion and inspirational hero. LBJ suffers the blame for the Vietnam War. JFK was the ideological spearhead for civil rights and is remembered as such, but LBJ pushed the Civil Rights Act through Congress and signed it. He took advantageof the political climate after JFK’s assassination and pressured his fellow Southerners into supporting the legislation. LBJ gets little credit for civil rights yet he bears responsibility for the Vietnam War, which ironically was a stage where JFK and his administration planted the seeds and made the early commitments. There were over 10,000 US military personnel in Vietnam before LBJ was ever sworn in. I once saw an episode of Dave Chapelle’s show, another noted historian, where he implied that the blame for Vietnam rest with Richard Nixon, the president who appointed a peace negotiator before actually being inaugurated in 1969 and ultimately ended the war. So we can see that public legacies are not always based on thorough research or objective opinion.

Bush achieved approval ratings as high as the low 90s and as low as the high 20s. Presidents who achieved such high approval as Bush are an elite club, almost as elite as the presidents who achieved such low approval. Harry Truman experienced similar extremes, his highest after ending World War II by using nuclear weapons and his lowest during the Korean War. Over fifty years later, Truman is regarded as having been a good president. Will Bush enjoy the same fate? Only time will tell.

George W. Bush will be remembered for September 11 and the Iraq War, which represent his high and low points in public approval. Everything Bush did in between, his “War on Terror,” will also be a part of his legacy. September 11 was a circumstance of chance and Bush's leadership went over well with the country. He probably enjoyed a rally-round-the-flag effect but, nevertheless, approval that high will not be forgotten. A big part of Jimmy Carter’s legacy was also a circumstance of chance, the Iran Hostage Crisis. The Iraq War was not a result of chance and Bush's ensuing dismal support will not be forgotten either. Parallels to the Vietnam War have been drawn since the outset and are best illustrated by the public perception’s separating the Iraq War from the War on Terror just as the Vietnam War is barely associated with the Cold War.

Bush’s War on Terror and everything it entailed – the Department of Homeland Security, Guantanamo Bay, the Patriot Act, etc. – is how he chose to define himself and that is how he will be remembered. What happens in Iraq determines much of his fate. While violence has calmed since the troop surge, it may spike as soon as US forces leave. If this happens and Iraq descends into sectarian violence and ethnic slaughter, or aligns itself with Iran and other antagonistic Islamic Law countries, Bush will suffer the blame. If Iraq thrives as a beacon of democracy and future ally, Bush will enjoy the credit. The smart money is not on the latter but we'll see.

Historic Impact

Historians will judge Bush based on more than what they remember off the top of their heads. Three main aspects of his presidency will be the focus, all of which played a big role in his War on Terror.

Preemptive Doctrine – The most debated Bush policy will be his doctrine of preemption. Bush Doctrine, as it is sometimes called, asserts that preemptive strikes are justified to prevent future aggression. In other words, the United States can invade and even overthrow foreign governments which had committed no acts of aggression against the US, but are perceived to pose a threat in the future. With the exception of tacit support for hushed coups, this is new ground for America.

The Taliban in Afghanistan had not committed any crimes against the United States but they refused to turn over someone who did: Osama Bin Laden. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, a preemptive war to overthrow this Islamic Law regime was not a difficult sell to the public. It didn’t seem preemptive since America was simply reacting to being attacked. The Taliban wasn’t complying with justice so they had to go. Iraq, however, was a tougher sell. Saddam Hussein’s government had no ties to Islamic terrorism and was on the verge of bankruptcy. The Bush administration made a shaky case that the Iraqi government had “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD) and that a preemptive strike was necessary to ensure the future safety of the United States by creating a democracy in the Middle East. The invasion and occupation of Iraq has proven divisive and increasingly unpopular. Both wars of preemptive doctrine were justified with the intention to prevent problems. Future American attitudes and international law will determine whether this doctrine - war with the intent to prevent - will persevere.

Expansion of Presidential Powers – In what seems to have been priorities of Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and under the justification of fighting the War on Terror, Bush has expanded the powers of the executive branch beyond their reach in previous administrations. The Patriot Act allowed for warrant-less wiretapping, rendition, and unprecedented executive privilege. Bush has utilized the signing of statements to clarify how he interprets new legislation passed by Congress. Critics assert he uses his signed statements as a way to enforce only what he wants. Members in Congress are calling for this power to be rolled back and a restoration of checks and balances. How Obama handles his transition in that office will have a great influence on the future of the executive branch.

Enemy Combatants Policy – In order to justify an aggressive war against Islamic extremism, Justice Department lawyer John Yoo developed the legal framework for the handling of enemy combatants. This handling has included rendition, lack of due process and detention at Guantanamo Bay, and torture including water-boarding. I am not a legal expert but I believe the cornerstone of that legal opinion is that, because the enemy combatants in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere who plan war crimes against the US do not represent a recognized state and do not wear uniforms clearly identifying themselves, the Geneva Conventions do not apply to them. This opinion seems to have stood up in the courts to an extent, but only with the help of the previously-mentioned expansion of presidential powers and executive privilege. Obama has already committed to closing Guantanamo Bay and, given his background in law, we can expect he will roll back the secretive and questionable tactics of the Bush administration. Still, those tactics have set a precedent and will be examined and debated for generations to come.

What Bush Won’t Be Remembered For (by the public):

*Feel free to disagree with me in the comments section.

Patriot Act – I almost included this under the impact section, but decided his real impact was the overall theme of expanding presidential power. I don’t think the Patriot Act alone will be memorable in the future because (A) it was renewed in relatively uncontentious fashion and (B) while some provisions have been discarded, most of it has held up in court.

Hurricane Katrina Response – as much outrage as it caused at the time, I don’t see this event earning much space in the history books (if it’s mentioned at all).

Department of Homeland Security – after all, Richard Nixon isn’t remembered for the Environmental Protection Agency.

Administration Scandals (Scooter Libby, Alberto Gonzales) – not sexy enough like Monica-gate and not incriminating enough like Watergate to stand the test of time.

Opposition to Gay Marriage and Stem-Cell Research – these wedge issues can inflame now but nobody will remember who supported which side in fifty years.

Prescription Drug Benefit in Medicare – the largest increase in federal spending in modern times didn’t meet much opposition when it was passed.

AIDS in Africa – AIDS. And Africa. Bush gave a lot. How many people care?

No Child Left Behind – the most controversial education legislation that nobody really cares about enough to see how their own Congressmen voted, much less pressure them to repeal it.

Tax Cuts – capital gains, estate tax, stimulus checks, and refunds. When's my next one?

Other Developments of the Last 8 Years:

Sarbanes-Oxley Act – in the wake of the Enron scandal, Bush signed this legislation which mandates the toughest financial reporting of publicly traded companies in the history of the industrialized world. The cost of compliance has been cited as a major reason corporations are increasingly listing on stock exchanges in other countries.

Do-Not-Call Implementation Act – everybody should remember the do-not-call list you could have opted in for to be off-limits to telemarketers.

Partial-Birth Abortion Ban – “partial-birth abortion” in politics but it’s known as “intact dilation and extraction” in medicine.

CAN-SPAM Act – this disclosure-mandating legislation put out of business one successful spammer that I knew personally. Somehow, not all spam got canned.

Bankruptcy Reform – sounded like a good idea at the time to the kinds of people who don’t declare bankruptcy. It may make weathering the current financial crisis much more difficult for individuals and companies.

Secure Fence Act – this legislation mandated we build a big, long fence between us and our neighbors. Well, one of our neighbors anyway.

Supreme Court Justices John G. Roberts and Samuel Alito – the reason(s) why the religious base elected him.

Feedback

I would love for you to agree or disagree with me in the comments below. I have surely left something out. Please include it. I assume most of the feedback will claim that I am being too generous with Bush. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed my brief recap of the last eight years.

Lolita: A Review of Love and Youth

noreply@blogger.com (Colin) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 01:36:00 +0000

I recently read Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. It’s a wonderful novel worthy of a review and analogy to my own life.

Humbert Humbert is the story’s main character who has a fetish for young girls. Not just young – pubescent. He calls them “nymphets.” Nymphets are girls in the early stages of puberty who already display a naughty side. Nymphets, according to Humbert, can range from 9 – 14 years of age and are sexually mischievous – the kind of girls likely to be sleazy later in life.

(Spoiler warning)

Humbert moves to a small New England town to focus on his writing. Charlotte Haze shows him a room for rent in her house. While he is devising various excuses to refuse the room, he glimpses Charlotte’s twelve year-old daughter, Dolores. He agrees to move in with the widowed mother and her nymphet daughter. Charlotte falls in love with Humbert while Humbert infatuates over Charlotte’s flirtatious daughter, who he refers to as “Lolita.” Humbert agrees to marry Charlotte in order to cement his access to Lolita. Charlotte dies soon after learning of Humbert’s real motive. With Charlotte dead, Humbert and Lolita consummate their new relationship in a hotel before embarking on a long road trip together. They tour the country staying in motels, posing as father and daughter. They settle down in a small Midwestern town where Humbert finds a job and enrolls Lolita in school. After several months, they hit the road again. While away, Lolita escapes with another man. Humbert drifts aimlessly for a couple years before receiving a letter from Lolita, who is now pregnant and in need of money. He never stopped loving her. Humbert drives to Lolita’s rural Washington home with the intention of killing her boyfriend, who he learns is not the man who helped Lolita escape Humbert years ago. Lolita confesses the identity of the man who did help her escape, Clare Quilty, the only man she ever loved. Quilty dumped Lolita after she refused to participate in an orgy / porno film. Humbert kills Quilty and is apprehended at the end of the book.

JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye is one of my favorite tales and one of the more famous stories featuring a flawed / unreliable narrator, Holden Caulfield. But Vladimir Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert is an antihero in a way I’ve never seen. Lolita’s protagonist has a sexual relationship with his twelve year-old stepdaughter while assuming the role of her guardian. In one scene after settling in the small town, Lolita’s teacher advises Humbert to ease up on Lolita. The teacher explains that Lolita seems stifled around boys and should be allowed to mingle (Humbert gave very strict rules, especially concerning boys). After the conference, Humbert sits next to Lolita in class and has her give him a hand job under the desk while he ogles her nymphet classmate. Who could imagine a less lovable main character than a pedophile? American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman comes to mind. But Nabokov writes the story in a way that makes you laugh and identify with Humbert – which I couldn’t do with Bateman in American Psycho (not the book anyway).

Lolita is absolutely hilarious. Humbert is derogatory and ridiculing of others. He lies and manipulates people throughout the story in aims to gain love and sex from Lolita, or to prolong the illusion of father and daughter. At times he is pathetic, hopelessly controlled by Lolita. He is madly in love with her. In the end, he avenges her heartbreak by murdering the only man who ever hurt her. The book ends on a twisted romantic note.

I asked for this book as a Christmas present before developing a relationship with Milagros, a twenty year-old nursing student. I resolutely understand that 29 and 20 is no big deal in Peru,but it’s a little weird in America. I wouldn’t be able to take her to a bar. I'll turn 30 a few months before she turns 21. If she's still around in March, we'll be 30 and 20. I don’t consider her my “girlfriend” and I don’t put a lot of stock in the longevity of the relationship. But there is something to it. Specifically, I can’t stop having sex with her. I’ve had all kinds of sexual girls. I’ve had girls who achieve orgasm often, I’ve had screamers, I’ve had girls who like nasty things, and I’ve had girls who are emotional afterward. However, I’ve never had all of those in one. Milagros is a 20 year-old nymphet. This is one reason I just can’t stop.

It may be due to the coincidence in timing, but I see similarities between Humbert’s relationship with Lolita and my relationship with Milagros. Throughout the book, Lolita badgers Humbert to buy her gifts. After all, she is still a kid and Humbert is playing the guardian role. She gets impulsive whims. She wants candy, or gossip magazines, or clothes. Because he is also her lover, he often gives in. After returning from Christmas in America, I told Milagros I wasn’t going out for New Year’s Eve. I wanted to stay home. She decided to spend the night with me. After our first round of love, she said she wanted champagne. I obliged (S/.10.00 = $3.23). On the walk to the market,people were selling cheap party favors. I refused the 2009 party glasses and hats, but she had to have the yellow leafy necklaces (S/.0.50 = $0.16 each). I had to wear one too. I obliged. We passed somebody selling DVD’s. She wanted to watch a movie. I obliged and bought Tropic Thunder (S/.1.50 = $0.48).

Milagros doesn’t have a job and her family isn’t rich. So after an initial investment of a taxi to my place, she is usually broke. Besides being the financial sugar daddy, I also feel like her dad in maturity and age. I didn’t buy this stuff as her equal doing her a favor. I felt like dad pleasing his kid while also getting pleasure from the beam in his little girl’s eyes.

On the downside, her immaturity puts her beneath that of equal. She laughs at things that aren’t funny. After a love session one Sunday morning, we relaxed for thirty minutes cuddling. I realized I hadn’t eaten and we had to figure out what we would do that day. I asked her what she wanted to do. “Quiero chicle,” she replied. I want gum. I want gum? Other times she wants to play-fight in bed. She instigates tickle-fights. I’m too old for that shit.

Humbert married Charlotte to become Lolita’s stepfather. After the mother’s death, he assumed the role of guardian and passed himself off as her father. I am not Milagros’ parental figure in any way but she does call me “papi.” Papi literally translates to “daddy.” She has twice called me that during sex. Creepy. I once confided in a (female) friend that most of my serious girlfriends had weak or no father figures in their lives. I wondered if I subconsciously look for girls with abandonment issues. This friend countered that maybe those girls were looking for someone like me. I was the hunted, not the hunter.

Another day I left Milagros in bed to answer the door. Karol came over with a couple guys from Lima to pick up a mattress she loaned us. After they left, I heard another knock on the door. Karol came back to offer me her leftover chicharron from lunch. I took the to-go box from her and thanked her excitedly. After she left, I saw it was chicharron de chancho – pork. I don’t eat pork so I offered it to Milagros, who was still in bed. She didn’t say anything so I gave it to Nicolas (I knew he would want it). When I returned to bed, Milagros told me she was mad at me for flirting with Karol. I asked her what the hell she was talking about. She kept turning her head away from me so I couldn’t see her face. She carried on like this for several minutes, me moving around to look at her and her turning her head the other way so all I saw was hair. I gave up. She was like a petulant little child. I laid in silence and thought about other things for several minutes. Out of nowhere, she turned towards me and accused me of flirting with Karol and asked why I said what I said. I told her I had no idea what I said. She eventually forgot about it. The Latina breed comes with more jealousy than most others, but immaturity is also at play in the case of Milagros.

Last Sunday, we drank absinthe and beer most of the day. While in my room, I asked her to suck on my neck. She is always leaving jewelry and other artifacts in my room to mark her territory (common of women), so I thought of a way to entice her into complying. I told her to try to leave a hicky so the other girls I know would see it. Milagros cracked me across the face. “What the fuck?” I think I said in English. She cracked me again and I restrained her. I asked her what her problem was. She complained that I hurt her wrist while restraining her. She took a whiny tone like a little girl I had abused. She seemed ready to cry. I laid down and let her win. I put my hands at my sides and put my chin out. She cracked me again, hard. “OW!” I said but I think I was laughing as I said it, because she cracked me again on the same side and then one more time on the other side of my face. I remember thinking this was like playing with my nine year-old kid brother.

One key difference between Humbert and me, besides Lolita’s being in the beginning stages of puberty and Milagros’ having finished years ago, lies in the power of the relationship. While Humbert was proficient in manipulating others, Lolita controlled him. While I am having a hard time calling it quits with Milagros, I control her. But I feel a kinship with Humbert for having this need – this thing I just can’t quit – even though I have to tolerate an immature personality to enjoy it. Hopefully, the immature personality is not what I enjoy.

Oh well. Here’s to you, Humbert! And to you, Vladimir, great story!

Daddy's Little Girl:

Print Publishing vs. E-Publishing

noreply@blogger.com (Colin) — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:12:00 +0000

Many writers and industry analysts are debating if e-publishing will conquer print publishing (various article links below). If is not debatable. When and how are. In other words, think about when print will be conquered and, especially for aspiring writers with no backup plan, how to make money in the future of publishing.

Keep in mind that, simply by being active in this online forum, you are statistically among the earlier adopters of digital technology. History has yet to run its course and digital habits have yet to go fully mainstream (consider the computer literacy of the 2008 Republican presidential candidate).

Historically, the automobile was an economic game-changer (an industry disrupter, if you will) for transportation just as digital technology is for reading. The method is irrelevant to the purpose. Transportation involves going from Point A to Point B. While people had grown up with and were accustomed to the horse fulfilling this need, horses aren't actually critical to the basic need of transportation just as paper is no longer critical to the basic need of reading. Aside from the paper milling industry, there are other unnecessary middlemen operations (lumber, shipping and storage, printing, binding, brick and mortar retailing via Barnes & Noble, Borders, etc.) that make the economics of print publishing unviable in the long-term when competing with e-publishing.

The resistance to abandoning paper is like the resistance to abandoning horses. Arguments to preserve paper – the feel of the book, the durability, less risk of reading in the tub – will seem as ridiculous in 100 years as arguments to preserve horses for transportation seem now. There were surely people who felt horses would never be replaced. After all, the automobile can't go everywhere a horse can go. Not everybody liked cars. Horses were the standard everybody grew up on. They used to call common sense "horse sense." There surely are virtues to printed copies of text just as there surely were virtues to keeping horses. On a different note and more personal level, I hold great affinity for the cassette tape. I still own dozens of mixtapes and can make strong arguments in favor of the cassette over the compact disc (although those don't hold water against digital music). Unfortunately for the tape, economics trump virtue. In other words: money talks, bullshit walks.

While we internet-savvy consumers from industrialized countries are early adopters, we are also fossils historically in that we even have some attachment to printed reading. How strong is that attachment among the youth in South Korea, the country which boasts the best broadband penetration in the world and whose citizenry performs most daily tasks and live their lives on smart-phones? If you're in the US, you may receive printed coupon advertising in the mail. In South Korea, they receive text message offers from restaurants and retailers as they pass the place. Paper is unnecessary.

To better understand where print is going, watch the newspaper industry. 50 years ago, every bumfuck town needed a hard copy paper to publish the same world news and a few local stories. But in the 21^st century and beyond, how many letters of record are needed past the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and niche pubs like The Guardian and The Economist? Do people really need a hard copy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch? People are already going online for news while the industry scrambles for revenue. Who needs the local classified section when there are superior digital sources like craigslist and eBay? Printed book publishers will eventually run into financial woes as well.

Determining when print will die is difficult. America won't match super-urban South Korea's broadband penetration any time soon because of its geography – suburban Americans live spread out in big houses with yards. This will inhibit the already slow digital adoption rate in America (don't forget about the presidential candidate who doesn't use the Internet). You may live most of your life before the inevitable death of print. In most of the world, the masses living in emerging markets don't yet have the means for digital technology. However, they may be able to leapfrog outdated technology like printing as they leapfrogged landline phones.

Determining how to make money is also difficult. I'm not going to pretend to have an idea how this angle will play out, but I'm confident that capitalism and the profit motive will find a way. I whole-heartedly disagree that the quality of literature will suffer. I imagine that argument was made by musicians complaining about the emergence of the phonograph record in the early 20^th century. If people can buy our music once and listen to it forever, they won't pay to see us perform. How will we make money? All the good musicians will quit making music. Present day musicians revived that fear when downloading technology came in the picture, but society has managed to monetize that as well. While the kinds of art found in museums may need a government subsidy, music and reading have always demanded a high premium. There will always be a market. Does anybody honestly foresee a shortage of writers someday?

Then again, published content will certainly change. I converted from the Times hard copy to the Internet about a year ago and there is a clear difference in what I choose to read. With a hard copy, you are almost compelled to read all the articles. While I thoroughly enjoyed a 3000 word article about the growing exports from Brazil of HPC products featuring exotic ingredients from the Amazon rainforest, I probably wouldn't have clicked on it if I were getting my news online. On the other hand, should the mainstream public be subsidizing that article if nobody cares about it? Or should it be featured in a niche publication? Nicholas Carr in The Atlantic on how reading online may change what we read and how we think: "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

What's my point? Don't think if. Think when and how.

Marketing guru Seth Godin on the future of publishing

Samir Husni on the power of print

Bob Sacks says "It's a Digital World Now"

Alcohol and Writing: Essays Under the Influence

noreply@blogger.com (Colin) — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 00:59:00 +0000

A new writing exercise to investigate the effects of alcohol on writing, which must have a positive effect. Otherwise, why would all the best writers be raging alcoholics? Hemingway, Thompson, Burroughs, Kerouac, etc.

The exercise: write 3 - 5 essays, each 100 - 500 words. 90 minute limit. Choose essay topics from Chuck Klosterman's 23 Questions in Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs. The first essay must be written before consuming alcohol. The second essay can't be started until alcohol has been consumed. Note how much alcohol (and what alcohol) has been consumed for each essay.
* the 23 questions are so cool that I am going to try to answer all of them in later blogs

We are not looking at general quality, but relative quality. We want to see the effects writing under the influence relative to writing without alcohol.

Love and Music

Started: 5:58pm.
Finished: 7:04pm.
Drinks: 0.

Question:

You meet your soul mate. However, there is a catch: Every three years, someone will break both of your soul mate's collarbones with a Crescent wrench, and there is only one thing you can do to stop this from happening: You must swallow a pill that will make every song you hear--for the rest of your life--sound as if its being performed by the band Alice in Chains. When you hear Creedence Clearwater Revival on the radio, it will sound (to your ears) like it's being played by Alice in Chains. If you see Radiohead live, every one of their tunes will sound like it's being covered by Alice in Chains. When you hear a commercial jingle on TV, it will sound like Alice in Chains; if you sing to yourself in the shower, your voice will sound like deceased Alice vocalist Layne Stanley performing a capella (but it will only sound that way to YOU).

Would you swallow the pill?

Answer:

I would NOT take the pill and my "soulmate" would spend a good amount of her life in a wheelchair. Sorry love. It was a sweet love. But I must be traveling on now because I'm as free as a bird now.

Klosterman is asking which life would be preferred: a life without love or a life without music. However, his premise is flawed because there is no such thing as one "soulmate." I had a girl I loved very much and considered a "soulmate." We lived together and she left me and I almost cried for the bitch. We didn't completely stop seeing each other for almost a year after she moved out. I still love her but she is not my only "soulmate." I would estimate there are a dozen or so "soulmates" for any given person in any given city. The number of soulmates in different cities probably fluctuates among global regions depending on how well your personality fits within a certain culture (e.g. my number plunges in European cities while it spikes in Latin America).

Love is more about maturity than it is about the perfect match. There are several compatible matches out there if each partner is emotionally ready for such a commitment. If both partners are confident (not desperate), if both partners are mature enough (finished fucking different people), and if both partners share a genuine affection and trust, then they're "soulmates." That's all it takes. We humans skew toward the monogamous end of the spectrum. Despite our urges to breed with many, it is in our blood to settle down.

Now that we have established that there is no such thing as a "soulmate," we can focus on the apocalyptic nightmare of only hearing one music group forever. This is a life not worth living. I realize others may not be music fanatics like me but everybody has a little bit of soul. I need male and female singers. Alice in Chains can't pull off all genres. I need all kinds of music. Blues, jazz, reggae, hip hop, reggaeton, cumbia, punk. Even emo sometimes. A particularly sweet "soulmate" may be worth one or two genres, but not all of them.

As it's phrased, Klosterman's question is easy to answer but his idea of a tradeoff is not – monogamy in both love and music, or in neither. As much as I believe there are thousands of women out there suitable to marry, procreate and cohabitate with, not having one of them in my endgame is pretty damn scary. So is a life without music. If I couldn't shoot holes in his question and I had to choose love or music, I would choose love. The thought of getting old without a wife and a shitload of family around scares me more than hearing Alice in Chains cover Nina Simone's "Sinnerman".

P.S. I dig Alice in Chains and if that makes me a redneck then FUCK CHUCK KLOSTERMAN.

Clydesdales and Political Prisoners

Start time: 10:30
End time: 11:39
Drinks: About 3 beers: Arequipeña (Peruvian beer similar to American shit), and one shot: anisado (Peruvian anise-flavored spirit, 45% alcohol).

Question:

Let us assume a fully grown, completely healthy Clydesdale horse has his hooves shackled to the ground while his head is held in place with thick rope. He is conscious and standing upright, but completely immobile. And let us assume that--for some reason--every political prisoner on earth (as cited by Amnesty International) will be released from captivity if you can kick this horse to death in less than twenty minutes. You are allowed to wear steel-toed boots.

Would you attempt to do this?

Answer:

Disclosure: I worked for Anheuser-Busch for two years. Budweiser is my favorite American macrobrew.

I would gladly kill the horse. Why only twenty minutes? To scare off the weak of heart? A quick killing seems more humane. Plus, the athletic challenge is inspiring. My hamstrings don't have great flexibility so I can't kick that high, especially wearing steel-toe boots. I hope a tall stepladder would be available so I could football-punt the horse's brain from above. Otherwise, my strategy would be to break its front legs before stomping its skull into bloody hair and bone fragments.

I won't discuss the animal rights angle with too many words. I eat chicken, beef, duck, fish and more. Like most humans, I support slaughter of animals in my behavior and in principle. Killing a horse is no more immoral than eating turkey at Thanksgiving. I'd pay for the opportunity to kill the horse and free the world's political prisoners. This person could potentially affect change on a scale unseen in my lifetime.

The only reservation I'd have pertains to the net effect of releasing all the world's political prisoners. Amnesty International doesn't have a comprehensive list but would probably designate some undesirables as political prisoners. Specifically, detainees in Guantanamo Bay. Cases have surfaced in which innocents were held for years. History will probably judge the Bush administration harshly in this respect. However, many of the detainees are Islamic fundamentalists who don't need to be freed. Would they be considered political prisoners?

At most, there are a few hundred detainees being held in Guantanamo (I'm not researching now). The total number of terrorists held around the world pales in comparison to the number of political reformists held in repressive states like North Korea, Cuba, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe, Sudan, China, and the Republic of Equatorial Guinea. If every one of them were released into their home countries at the same time, a human rights revolution for the history books would be underway overnight. Those prisoners have balls unseen in the US since George Washington and company but their governments retain more control than 18^th century England did. These people's resistance would create a synergy to truly change the world as did the American Revolution.

I am biased toward democracy. The "state capitalism" models of China and Russia may eventually prove to triumph over traditional liberal governments like the US, UK and Japan. Unlike China and Russia, most repressive states holding political prisoners not only fail to create thriving economies, they fail to effectively feed their people. Some of the most unfortunate people in the world are those who were born into the countries listed. The altruistic decision in this scenario is to kill the fucking horse. Anybody who cares more about the Clydesdale than those countries' reformers should have their current passport revoked and deported. Let them be PETA members in those countries.

Attractive Magicians

Start time: 12:57am
End time: 1:52am
Drinks: 4 – 5 shots anisado, 6 - 8 beers (I'm drunk)

Question:

You meet a wizard in downtown Chicago. The wizard tells you he can make you more attractive if you pay him money. When you ask how this process works, the wizard points to a random person on the street. You look at this random stranger. The wizard says, "I will now make them a dollar more attractive." He waves his magic wand. Ostensibly, this person does not change at all; as far as you can tell, nothing is different. But--somehow--this person is suddenly a little more appealing. The tangible difference is invisible to the naked eye, but you can't deny that this person is vaguely sexier. This wizard has a weird rule, though--you can only pay him once. You can't keep giving him money until he's satisfied. You can only pay him one lump sum upfront.

How much cash do you give the wizard?

Answer:

How much cash would I give the wizard to make me more attractive? Everything in my pockets. Maybe if I were actually in this situation – if it weren't hypothetical – then maybe I would go to an ATM or break out the plastic in another way. But my first impression in this hypothetical exercise is to pay the magician everything in my pockets and not a penny more.

I am an attractive guy. But I have no game. I have no idea about the seduction process. My sex life survives almost solely on my physical attractiveness. The only way I get laid is if women throw it at me or if a girl wants me for a boyfriend so badly that she ignores the unromantic and idiotic shit I say. I would surely do better, with better-looking women, if I were more attractive.

There are many men more attractive than me. There are even more with better game. Everybody wants to be the sexiest person in the room. I do too. I want to be better than those guys. I would pay for it. Everything in my pockets.

Beauty is worth a premium without a Chi-town magician. Breast implants, nose jobs, lip implants, butt implants, liposuction, braces. Many men and women spend countless hours in the gym solely for cosmetic reasons.

There is a fine line between striving for self-improvement and being vain. There is a point where the pursuit of beauty sacrifices self-esteem. I am conscious enough to realize that I was dealt a good hand. I'm quite satisfied with what I was given in the DNA lottery. I don't need to run up my credit cards to look like a model. It's not that important. I'm good where I'm at.

I can understand people who would pay more than I would. I wasn't always fine. I was fat as a kid. Then I was scrawny and baby-faced in high school. I was ignored by girls for most of my life. I remember the mentality of someone who isn't attractive. It sucks. If I was still on that level, I would probably pay the magician more than what I had on me and then some. And I wouldn't judge anybody who would do that now. But I would caution them to not cross that line into self-loathing. Extreme beauty with no confidence or self-esteem isn't hot.

My Freak-Show Roommate: Episodes I - III

noreply@blogger.com (Colin) — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 00:31:00 +0000

The Freak-Show Roommate emails started about a month after I moved to Peru. I just wrote them for fun while at work, and also to vent. However, the emails have gotten such a positive response, I decided that they may warrant a blog post.

I lived with Beto from April through September - six months. I sent three emails. They are below in their entirety. There is one previously unreleased episode at the bottom. Enjoy!

Date: May 8
Subject: My Freak-Show Roommate
(One month, one week with the Beto-nator)

I am probably going to hell for writing this because my roommate always buys me dinner and has helped me out a lot in getting adjusted. But he is an obnoxious freak-show and I have to vent. I have been friends with nerds before, but only nerds who know they are nerds and accept it. Nerds who are laidback and secure with themselves can be cool. Beto does not think he is a nerd. This piece will not be appearing in the blog.

Beto and his brother turn the lights off every single time they leave a room. I come home to a pitch black house every night, but they are usually home. Every day, I am fumbling for a switch or trying to navigate the stairs up to my room. Sometimes, I will be cooking or boiling water in the kitchen but exercising in the living room and they will turn the light off in the kitchen.

A few weeks ago, the water was turned off in our building for a day. The human waste gathers in the toilet until you can flush the next day. For some reason, the toilet didn't flush it all down the next day. I told Beto. He told me it didn't flush because I had been putting toilet paper in the toilet and that I should stop. I told him I put the first few - the pieces with the most poop - in the toilet but have been putting the rest in the trash as I learned in Brazil. He told me all the paper is supposed to go into the trash. A few minutes later, the toilet successfully flushed on a second attempt. I asked Carlos about the toilet paper issue the next day. He told me I was right to begin with and my roommate is a huevon - a dumb shit.

Beto knows one of the girls in my office - Carla. While with Beto, I ran into Carla at a bar and that is how we learned we all knew each other. Carla told me later that she actually didn't know his name until I told her. They went to the local university together and, every time they saw each other in the halls, Beto would greet her very warmly and excitedly. Carla said Beto "es un freak."

One day I cooked eggs and burned them a little. The pot does not nor never had teflon on it. So I first scraped the egg off with a spoon before using a sponge with soap to wash the pot. The next day, Beto told me I shouldn't use metal on that pot because it scratches it. But there's no teflon to scratch off, I said. He said it scratches the finish.

One day I told Beto I needed to buy protein. He told me he knows where to get a good price on Centrum.

Beto is generally an effeminate guy with a puffy little physique - definitely not the kind of macho assholes I tend to run around with. Before playing soccer with a bunch of the AIESEC guys, we got into a disagreement in which he told me I shouldn't have eaten before the game. Later he was giving me tips on how to warm up before we got started. And as I assumed it before we even got to the court, Beto sucks at soccer and throws a ball like a girl.

Despite having lived in Italy for a year, Beto keeps his red wine in the refrigerator. When I asked him if he knew that red wine is supposed to be served at room temperature, he told me he did know that but he doesn't want the wine to go bad.

I asked Beto if I could use his spaghetti. He picked up one box and told me not to use that spaghetti because it is special. He brought it to Peru from Italy. It was the common brand Barilla, which you can find anywhere in the States including Shop N Save and Food4Less. He is saving it for a special occasion.

I didn't realize my roommate was such a freak show for a while. At first, I thought some of these things were Peruvian culture. But then he told me something about himself that called everything he has ever said into question. One morning after a big night out at the bar, he told me he ran into a girl he was going out with a few months ago. He danced with her for a song and she told him she is seeing somebody else. I told him that sucks dude. Oh well, there's a million of them out there. Sure, he told me, but she was his first kiss. I had to ask like six clarifying questions like "was she your high school girlfriend?" and other questions until I understood that, in fact, Beto first kissed a girl in February. He is 27 years old and he kissed a girl for the first time in February.

Beto's parents are currently building a house which they are living in. When it is finished, Beto is considering moving in with them. Great idea, especially given that last development.

Date: May 30, 2008
Subject: More Funny Freak-Show Roommate Stuff
(Two months with the Beto-nator)

I never meant for this to be a regular series and this should be the last one. There is something new every day with this guy. Beto's cooler brother moved out a week ago. It's just the two of us now.

I saw an empty, plastic Gatorade bottle in the sink. The cap had that plastic squirt function. I washed all the dishes and left the bottle in the sink, hoping Beto missed the trash bag on the counter. The next day or so, I saw that he had washed the plastic Gatorade bottle and set it to dry with the clean dishes.

Beto's iron is so old the dial settings came off years ago. The iron predates the innovation of a built-in chamber which slowly releases water and creates steam. I spray water from a bottle directly onto the shirt before ironing it. While ironing one day, I asked Beto how old the iron was. He told me at least twenty years. I think it was made in the early eighties at the latest. More likely the seventies. This is an example of something I believed to be normal in Peru, but have learned is not. Middle class families have irons from the 21st century. Irons older than me that don't hold water are just as rare here as in America.

Beto showed me this juice he bought one day. It was a combination of various jungle fruits. He showed me the label and explained to me, like a teacher to a student or a parent to a child, that it was high in protein and pointed to the spot where it read that it had some 800mg of protein. There is no Peruvian regulation in Nutritional Information labeling standards (like listing nutrient quantities in grams). I usually don't correct the dumb shit, but this time I had to explain to him that not only is this juice not a good source of protein, but also that less than one gram of protein effectively equates to no protein. I don't expect everybody to know the glycemic index for different starches, or the ideal proportion in the human diet of Omega 3 fatty acids to Omega 6, or what foods are a good source of zinc. But I would expect a 27 year-old with a Master's degree to know which general food categories are sources of the basic nutrients: protein, carbohydrates, fats, sugars, and fiber. But that is why he is a little pudgy dude shaped like a kickball.

Peruvians graduate high school at 16. Although he graduated over ten years ago, Beto joined his high school band last week. I guess high school bands allow alumni to participate. He plays the trumpet and will go to practice Sunday and Wednesday nights.

When Beto asked what I did Friday night, I told him I went to a brothel and banged a whore. It took him a minute or so to get over his shock. Then, with a straight face of genuine curiosity, the guy asked me if I wore a condom.

Being the nice guy that I am, I saved Beto some of a dinner I made for Charo and myself after we ate. Neither had ever tried Chicken Parmesan before. He told me I cooked the noodles too long. They were too soft. In contrast, he made spaghetti once. It was noodles and sauce from a jar - about a five-ounce jar to serve three people. After serving me, he told me he gave me a lot of sauce. After mixing it all up, my noodles were still white.

Beto - the guy who puts his own red wine in the refrigerator - criticized the wine Charo brought for our dinner. She brought a sweet wine because that's what she likes. He said it was too sweet. I was waiting for him to say it wasn't cold enough, but he didn't.

As I'm sure you know, I drink on Friday and Saturday nights. My first two Sunday morning hangovers in Peru were interrupted by Beto around 10 or 11 am. Both times, consecutive Sundays, I literally had my dick in my hand when Beto came knocking on the door to check on me. Colin? WHAT? Are you ok? FINE. Would you maybe like some coffee or tea? NO. Can I come in? I threw my blankets over my erection and sat up to open the door for the annoying fuck both times. But if it were my brother or if I were back at the frat house, I would have yelled through the door "I'm trying to jack off!" Not having known him very long at the time, I thought it wasn't a good idea. From now on, different story.

A few weeks ago, I had Charo in my room. We weren't having sex but we were cuddling in bed with the door locked. This fucking asshole comes knocking at the door telling us he is going to cook and would we want any? I'm like "What?" "Fine, whatever." He comes back to the door like fifteen minutes later saying: the food is ready guys. Come out and eat with me. So we come out and eat his bland spaghetti with him. He is talking to my girl the entire fucking time. He talked and talked and talked and talked after we were done eating and kept talking to her until she had to go home. SHUT UP! And you wonder why he still has his V-card.

The next night, Beto told me HIS MOM doesn't approve of having girls alone in the bedrooms. HIS MOM came over, as she often does and actually has her own key. She was one of about half a dozen different people in the apartment when I took Charo upstairs for privacy. He told me that he didn't mind, but to not do it when HIS MOM is over. I didn't say a word when Beto told me this. If it comes up again, I will have to explain to him that I don't care what my mom thinks about what I do with women. I am 29 (twenty-nine) and I pay rent. Unless I am in jail or the military, I will take a girl to my room whenever I want without feeling guilty. I am not going to lie to him or HIS MOM because I am too old to even act like I give a shit. I did not sign up for a Bible-study exchange and I did not move to an Islamic law country. This is a ridiculous request that has nothing to do with the national culture and I will ignore it. Beto saw my CV (international resume) before agreeing to letting me move in. A 29-year-old American with an MBA. A bartender. Two years with Anheuser-Busch. Not just a frat boy, but a frat president. What did he think I was going to do?

By the way, he told me about his mom after he followed me out of the kitchen and turned the light off where I had just started to boil water.

I have started to look into studio apartments. For the price I am paying, I could get my own place in the low-income neighborhood where my office is located. It would be a HUGE inconvenience, but it may be necessary.

Date: September 1
Subject: Freak-Show Roommate, The Final Chapter
(Five months with the Beto-nator)

This is surely the last Freak Show Roommate email. Two more gringos have moved into the apartment and each of them agree that Beto is a freak show. It took me a month to figure it out, as I was a lone gringo in the household. Karin figured it out in a week or so and Nicolas only needed two days. Karin showed Nicolas the previous Freak Show Roommate emails. While Karin and I looked over them, we realized that, while it was funny at the time, those things were not even close to the quirkiest freak habits of Beto and his family.

Beto and his family don't throw anything away, ever. In our cupboards you can find to-go boxes from restaurants that he washed and is saving. There are two or three of the white styrofoam style and two or three of the clear plastic style. I recently finished a tub of protein and put it with the trash. He washed it and put it in the cupboard.

Right now, there is a piece of bread in the freezer. This kind of bread costs one sol ($0.35) for seven pieces. So one piece is worth about 15 centimos ($0.05). He went to Brazil and decided to save this one piece for when he gets back.

Beto rarely throws food away. While he is an anally clean, neat-freak, he doesn't mind having a refrigerator full of rotting food. It grosses Karin out so she threw much of it away one day. He later asked her why she threw it away, specifically a plate of cooked noodles that had gone about as hard as noodles are before boiling them.

One day Beto thoroughly cleaned the cooking pots. He used his tools to remove the plastic handles. He scrubbed the metal which lies beneath these plastic handles with some chemical solution. He proudly showed me the dirt he removed. Then he re-affixed the plastic handles and the pots were really clean.

In my room, there is a shelving unit along one wall filled with Beto's childhood toys. There are mostly model cars, but also toy dinosaurs and action figures. Many fell off during the earthquake and I was pleased that some of them broke.

Not only is Beto within striking distance of becoming a thirty year-old virgin, he is also a shameless and clueless cock-block. When Dennis was in Arequipa, we went to Deja Vu every night. Friday night, Dennis started making out with some British chick. Beto joined them on the sofa and started talking to her. And he talked and talked and talked until she left for another couch. Dennis was incredulous. Then Beto followed her to the other couch and talked and talked and talked until she left that couch to go upstairs. Dennis couldn't believe it. The next night, Dennis was making out with Karin at Deja Vu. This was particularly promising because we were all going back to the same apartment together. In the taxi, I sat up front while Karin sat in the middle of Beto and Dennis in the back. Dennis and Karen were holding hands. Beto decided to hold Karen's other hand. Dennis was incredulous. Then Beto talked and talked and talked. Then Beto took out the map of Arequipa to and showed Karin different points of interest in Arequipa. When we got to the apartment, Dennis jumped out and said "I quit." He and I walked ahead as he fumed that Beto cock-blocked him again. It would not be inaccurate to say that Dennis hated Beto.

There was another cock-block episode at a party in which Beto physically got in between Roy and Luz to keep them from going outside to talk. Roy confronted Beto about it a week later. Beto came home and found me wasted on the computer. He asked me if I knew why Roy was mad. I was wasted and I laid it all out - that he is a cock-block and he needs to get laid and I will help him if he talks to me. He was very receptive to the message. While I didn't tell him that he is a freak, I did tell him that he needs to get laid. I told him I think he should have sex with a prostitute.

Some weeks later, I convinced Beto to come to the whorehouse with me and a friend. While my friend and I indulged in all the place has to offer, Beto didn't even buy a drink.

I had Ailene in my bed Saturday when Beto's parents came over, which they frequently do unannounced with their own key. They have only met Charo. I opened my bedroom door and saw them at the bottom of the stairs. I turned around and told Ailene not to come out. I ran outside to let some friends in the building and returned to Ailene in my room. She was dressed and folding my dirty laundry. She told me that Beto's mom saw her and seemed angry. We hung out for a couple minutes and then made the walk of shame downstairs. Beto's mom was at the ironing board in the master bedroom behind a window facing my room. She told me she wanted to talk to me. Ailene joined my friends downstairs in the kitchen and I joined Beto's parents in Nicolas' room. His mom told me she is angry with me. She said this is not a hotel. She said I can't have 'various women' in my room. She said she only wants us to have guests in the living room. She said this is a 'house of respect'. I nodded and nodded and thought to myself "I am moving out. Goodbye freaks."

I told Nicolas the story and he said he was moving out with me. It didn't occur to me at the time, but he is justifiably pissed that they went into his room. The next morning, after he had decided to move, he was woken up early in the morning and opened his eyes to see Beto's dad in the room looking at him. Beto's dad said "Hola."

So October will mark the end of the Freak Show Saga. There will be a mass gringo exodus from the freaks' lair. And there will be no more freaky stories.

Previously Unreleased

I don't think Beto and I can be friends anymore. I thought we could be friends but not roommates and I could continue to help him in his quest to lose his virginity. Unfortunately, something has happened that calls that theory into question. I moved out of his place at the end of September and my new roommates and I promptly threw a housewarming party. While drunk, I decided to pee out our second story window. Beto always has his camera with him so, on the way to the window, I said "Beto, take a picture of this." I assumed he would take a picture from the kitchen of me peeing out of the window in the living room. This is a signature picture of mine, me peeing in various public places. Instead, he came up beside me, about four feet to my left while I was peeing. He trained the camera on me (when I say 'me', I mean ...) for a long time. I assume he was zooming in and capturing several pics and whatnot. I felt weird. Used. I still don't think he's gay, but just too fucking weird for me to hang out with anymore. We're finished.

This is Beto's Facebook profile picture (and you wonder why he's a virgin?):

Miscellaneous Replies and Comments

Joe: Wow! I got nothin on that.

Dennis: At first I thought he was gay. Now I don't know. He's a eunuch.

Karin: I was NOT going to have sex with Dennis.

Matthew: Damn dude, that must really suck after having experienced such an awesome roommate situation with me back in Fall 2000. P.S. Beto is obviously Gay!

Tatyana: To tell the truth, i really like the short frustrated tales of your Beto roommate.

George: Well you're not gonna get in any trouble with that fag.

Kristina: Is he single? j/k

Martynas: the piece on your flatmate is ridiculous :) remember you're welcome here in lithuania. our bland food beats bland spaghetti!

Roy: Beto es un freak.

Ryan: do you think he even watches porn? i wouldn't be hanging out with a dueche [sic] like that anyway

Chuck: Those mother talks are the best aren't they?

Matthew (again): Get a clue, He's Gay! but great story. I'm kinda sad that they will end.

Ben: After reading this i clicked on the photo and fell on the floor. I could not stop laughing/crying. I had imagined that this guy was kind of nerdy looking but that fucking photo makes me want to fly all the way to Peru just take his lunch money and spend it on whores. I will miss the Beto episodes.

Lock & Sock: Based on a True Story

noreply@blogger.com (Colin) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:44:00 +0000

In my creative writing group, I completed a "flash fiction" exercise meant to hone word efficiency skills. The exercise is to write a story in 500 words. As opposed to a vignette, flash fiction is an entire story. There is a conflict, a climax, and resolution. Something changes. You first write the story and then cut it to 500 words. The exercise teaches you to aggressively cut unnecessary parts and keep only what is important. Mine came in at exactly 500.

Lock & Sock

Ian sunk his head in despair. He was supposed to get probation, but the judge handed him a two-year prison sentence. He almost shook with fear on the ride home. His dad said nothing.

Ian was terrified of prison. He didn't want to be a punk. He started doing pushups that night. He boxed in his teens, until he discovered drugs. He wasn't in shape like he was back then. He vowed to improve in the two months before he began his sentence.

Ian quit drinking and doing drugs. He started to lift weights and train at his old boxing gym. Coach warmly welcomed him back. Ian went right to work shadowboxing, hitting the bag, jumping rope, etc.

After a week, Ian asked to spar.

"You been here a week," Coach argued. "You not in shape."

Ian persisted. Coach agreed to two rounds. Ian did well exchanging jabs during the first minute. He slowed down in the second minute. By the third minute, he could barely keep his hands up. His partner knocked him dizzy with a right hand on the chin. Ian wobbled and almost lost his legs. Coach stopped them, refusing a second round.

Ian was frustrated. He needed to improve quicker. The next day at the gym, he asked to spar again.

"What are you trying to prove?" Coach asked.

"I just want to jump back in fast," Ian lied. Ian tried to spar every single day the gym was open, even if the only potential partners were heavyweights. He improved. Coach could not understand what had gotten into Ian. Then one day he never saw him again.

After turning himself in, Ian was being transferred to a medium-security facility in an orange jumpsuit and leg irons. Did the jumpsuit make him look skinny? On the bus, a fat redneck named Frank started a conversation. Ian didn't want to make friends and stared out the window in nervous anticipation. After a few hours, the bus entered his new home inside a hundred-foot fence topped with three layers of razor wire.

Ian and Frank were led to a gymnasium-sized dorm room that housed over seventy inmates. They slept in iron bunks spaced ten feet from each other. Sizing up the proximity of the inmates and the vibe of the crowd, Ian realized this may be more violent than he anticipated. Ian and Frank were shown their bunk; Ian took the bottom.

In the middle of the first night, Ian was unpleasantly woken up by four visitors swinging socks filled with combination locks on Frank. As soon as he heard the violence, Ian jumped out of his bed, ready to fight. The attackers barely glanced at Ian and continued. They were smiling. Almost as soon as it had started, it finished as each member of the war party slipped back into their bunks. Frank received mostly body shots and there was no visible blood.

Ian went back to bed. Ian thought to himself, smiling, "I'm going to be fine."

Fuck Detroit

noreply@blogger.com (Colin) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 00:48:00 +0000

Earlier this month, General Motors startled financial analysts by admitting that it was burning through $2 billion per month. It has lost $70 billion since 2004 while consistently losing market share for decades. GM, Ford, and Chrysler are currently launching an effort to gain access to the $700 billion TARP fund to prop up their companies in the midst of the historic financial crisis the world is in.

The companies were recently approved for $25 billion to retool factories in order to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles – a measure taken when oil was in the $160 / barrel range. Now the companies say that they will need more after a collapse in vehicle sales and credit markets. I am predicting that they, and specifically the most beleaguered GM, will not receive the bailout funds they are seeking as currently proposed.

There are many different takes on how the American automakers have come to their current situation. Popular culprits include union labor costs, poor management, and the current economic crisis. All of these play a part.

Denying the negative effect of the UAW on the American auto industry is ignoring the obvious. In researching a case study I did in 2007, I found there was a $30 / hour average difference in labor costs between American manufacturers and Japanese manufacturers.

Average cost of labor, Detroit Big Three = $75 / hour
Average cost of labor, Japanese Big Three = $45 / hour

The $75 figure for Detroit includes retiree pension and health benefits. It doesn't take an MBA to understand that you can't compete with variable costs 67% higher than the competition's and market a similar product (the word "similar" is arguable given perception towards American auto quality). It's plain to see that labor costs are a major contributing factor to American auto manufacturers' lack of competitiveness and financial woes. If labor costs didn't play a part, then why are all of the American companies in trouble while none of the foreign companies need help? *the 2008 Newsweek article below puts the figures at $71 and $47

The American companies reportedly gained sweeping concessions from the UAW negotiations in 2007, but savings aren't expected to be realized until 2010. Plus, those concessions still don't come close to bringing them in line with the competition.

The greatest failure in these companies' management was that they bet too heavily on light trucks and SUVs since the late nineties. Because the American companies made the best trucks and SUVs, they were able to command high prices and reap big profits. Their truck business subsidized the rest of the companies' operations. And since each American company had relatively the same deal from the UAW (from pattern bargaining), there was no competition between each other in labor costs. There was no competition from foreign companies in this category because Toyota trucks weren't in demand like the F-150, the Dodge Caravan, the Chevy Blazer, the Ford Explorer, and so on. In a particularly despicable chapter of business working with politics, the companies lobbied heavily and defeated legislation to increase fuel-efficiency standards so they could continue to sell these vehicles. Before the Japanese could develop better trucks at lower prices, the price of oil soared and the bottom dropped out on the truck market. This wiped out the little profitability the American firms had.

The price of oil has since plunged as the credit crisis gripped the world. While expensive gas will not prevent consumers from buying trucks in the near future, the inability to borrow will. As all the banks are tightening their belts due to their own mismanagement, millions of ordinary consumers who might have bought cars can't get the financing they would need in order to buy them.

That is the very short story of how GM and Detroit went from, as little as six months ago, touting their turnaround strategies as making progress to currently begging for billions from the federal government to stay alive. Would their turnaround strategies have worked if the economy hadn't tanked? Who knows?

The argument for the bailout is made in the name of preventing economic catastrophe. Not only does GM employ hundreds of thousands, but parts suppliers also employ hundreds of thousands. These companies are dependent on the manufacturers and they could also go under if GM did. In addition, there are over 10,000 dealerships around the country which depend on the Big Three for their livelihoods as well. Between the dealerships, the suppliers, and the manufacturers themselves, the Center for Automotive Research estimates that up to 3 million jobs could be lost (it should be noted that the Center for Automotive Research is heavily funded by the Big Three and that this figure is disputed). The argument's idea is that a government loan will keep GM and the others liquid for enough time to fully realize their turnaround strategies, therefore saving millions of jobs and preserving the primary component of the American manufacturing sector.

The argument against the bailout is winning. I first noticed yesterday that a vast majority of the users in newspaper comment forums opposed a deal. I can find articles detailing the arguments for and against a bailout, and I can find editorials against (especially in business and economics publications), but I could hardly find a strong editorial in favor of the bailout. To give an illusion of balance below, I had to go to the Detroit Free Press to cite an editorial in favor. There is a Newsweek article that is mildly in favor. Of all places, I found two of the more convincing arguments against a bailout from the New York Times.

Besides being a generally center-right country committed to free-market principles, most people just don't think the money will save the companies. It seems the more the public researches the industry and the companies, the more it believes that the bailout wouldn't solve their problems. The money would be burnt up and the companies would be in the exact same situation as before. Thirty years ago, the federal government bailed out Chrysler. What was it worth? Below is a link to an article detailing the British government's bailout of British Leyland, a case study with striking similarities to General Motors.

Bailout opponents contend that only under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection will General Motors be able to make the drastic changes needed to become a viable company. GM would be able to rewrite union contracts. Laws throughout the country that protect redundant dealerships (preventing GM from shedding brands) would be voided. These changes won't happen with a simple cash infusion. Free-market champions contend that, even if General Motors were to suffer Chapter 7 liquidation - the worst-case scenario - other manufacturers would buy the factories, employ the experienced workers, buy parts from suppliers, and open more dealerships. After all, Americans will still buy cars.

It is probably obvious that I oppose any government aid to the Big Three that does not include Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. But moving past the arguments for and against, these are the reasons why I deem the bailout (as is) as 'not-gonna-happen':

As stated before, there is considerable opposition to a bailout among the public.
There is considerable opposition on the editorial pages of all the major newspapers (except the Detroit Free Press).
In the face of demands to overhaul executive management, General Motors CEO Richard Wagoner has stated that he doesn't feel the company would need a change in leadership if it were to receive government money. Current management would stay in place.
Under mounting criticism of the labor unions' role, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger has said that his workers would not make any more concessions past the 2007 negotiations. They have given up enough.
As the Big Three mounted their offensive on Washington, a coalition of parts suppliers was formed and joined the beggars' party. They feel they are also entitled to TARP funds.
While the Democrats - who mostly favor a bailout deal - just won a landslide victory in November, Obama and the new Congress don't take office until late January. General Motors probably can't last that long. The Bush administration opposes using TARP funds for the auto companies and the current Senate probably does not have the votes to pass the legislation in the face of stiff opposition. And by the time the Democrats take office with their larger majority, the public will have had two more months to look into the matter. And, as I stated earlier, the more people learn about the companies and the industry, the more they realize that a bailout is futile.
Democrat Representative Barney Frank is drafting the bailout legislation with stipulations for the companies receiving aid. His bill includes pointless symbolism like a no-golden-parachutes clause and also a clause that would, in my opinion, completely tie the companies' hands in making sweeping change. There would be a government oversight on company operations (an auto czar, if you will) with veto power of any ventures(!).

"A Bridge Loan? U.S. Should Guide G.M. in a Chapter 11" (New York Times)

"A British Lesson on Auto Bailouts" (New York Times)

"How to Bail Out General Motors" (Newsweek)

"Saving Detroit" (The Economist)

"Time runs short to save an industry" (Detroit Free Press)

"Why Bankruptcy is the Best Option for G.M." (Wall Street Journal)

Don’t Vote: Just in Time for November

noreply@blogger.com (Colin) — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 23:27:00 +0000

Most of this material was developed for a presentation in my Managerial Communications course last winter. The assignment was to deliver a presentation asking the audience to take some kind of action. I promised the audience and I promise you that, if you do as I say, you will save time, save money, and enrich your life. In fact, taking my advice is easier than not taking it because the action I am asking you to take is actually inaction. I am asking you to not vote.

Because it was a speech as opposed to an essay, I had attention-grabbing fun stuff to start the show. I told them a famous Boss Tweed quote: "The people can elect whoever they like as long as I get to choose the candidates." (Boss Tweed was the infamous boss of the 19th century political machine in New York). Then I showed them a bumper sticker which reads, "Don't Vote – it only encourages them". I wrapped up the fun stuff with a classic economists' joke.

Two economists run into each other at the polls.
Economist A: "What are you doing here?"
Economist B: "My wife made me come. What are you doing here?"
Economist A: "My wife made me come."

This joke tied in nicely with my two-pronged argument against voting and illustrates how economists, the world's experts in maximizing benefit and utility with limited resources, regard it silly to waste one's time voting.

The two-pronged argument against voting: (1) your vote will not affect the outcome of the election and (2) your candidate will not change your quality of life.

The first part of the argument is based on statistics and economics. I explained the economic theory, the Paradox of Voting. This theory states that "for a rational, self-interested voter, the costs of voting will normally exceed the expected benefits. Because the chance of exercising a decisive vote (i.e. the chance of a tied election) is tiny compared to any realistic estimate of the private individual benefits of the different possible outcomes, the expected benefits of voting are less than the costs." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_voting

Economics hinges on rational behavior, and how rational people should behave in order to maximize their utility. According to this theory, voting is not rational behavior.

To further drive this point home, I developed a methodology to calculate one's chances of changing the outcome of an election. The truly random method would be 1 / n where n = total voters. However, elections are never random since we have opinion polls that seem to come out hourly which add predictability. In some states like California or Texas, your chances will actually be much lower because the election will not be close. In small, politically divided states like Iowa, your chances may be higher than with that methodology. So I scrapped that method for one that I arbitrarily made up which isn't accurate at all but is the most generous in yielding the highest probabilities of casting a deciding vote. 1 / n where n = the margin by which the winning candidate won in past elections. This completely ridiculous methodology doesn't even take into account the size of the state, but nobody can fault me for padding the numbers because I am padding them in the voters' favor. Using this methodology, I computed probabilities of changing the result for some recent elections in the St. Louis area.

2006 Missouri Senate (McCaskill by 48,314)
p = .000021

2004 Missouri President (Bush by 196,542)
p = .000005

2004 Illinois Senate (Obama by 2,206,766)
p = .0000005

2004 Illinois President (Kerry by 545,604)
p = .0000018

I emphasized that any Illinois residents were really wasting their time by voting because they don't have a chance in hell of making a difference (chance in hell = 0.00019%). Then I threw out some of the closest elections in history and their p-values.

2000 Florida President (Bush by 541)
p = .0019
* Statistically closest election ever

1876 South Carolina (Hayes by 889)
p = .0011
* 8.4 million votes cast in the whole country
* Women couldn't vote
* p-value inflated past any realistic comparison to present times

1916 California President (Wilson by ~4000)
p = .00025

1976 Ohio President (Carter by 11,116)
p = .00009

2006 Virginia Senate (Webb by ~10,000)
p = .0001

I pointed out that for all of the closest elections in US history, using my ridiculously generous methodology, the voter's chance of changing the outcome, when rounded to the closest percentage point, equals 0%.

Then I started the second prong of my argument against voting. Your candidate will not change your life. Because this is the business school and students are typically laissez-faire, free market conservatives, I picked on the Republicans first. Before I dug in, I emphasized that I was not trying to talk about or debate politics (especially Iraq), but to illustrate how the parties don't necessarily practice what they preach.

I showed statistics that showed how George W. Bush and a Republican Congress have presided over the largest inflation-adjusted federal spending increase since LBJ. Total spending grew by 33%. The federal budget, as a percentage of GDP, grew from 18.5% to 20.3%. Discounting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, Bush non-defense spending grew 4.8%, second to only Richard Nixon (another Republican!). On the other hand, the federal budget as a percentage of GDP shrank the most in recent decades under Bill Clinton and a Democrat Congress. So, as far as your economic politics are concerned, does it really matter who wins?

Then I picked on the Democrats. Just a year before my presentation, a national Congressional election gave the Democrats control of the House and the Senate for the first time in fourteen years. Discontent with the war in Iraq was the widely-accepted reason for the change in power. In January 2007, the Democrats took office as a national poll showed that 70% of Americans opposed sending more troops to Iraq. I explained to the international students and the Americans who don't read newspapers that, while Bush can send troops to Iraq, he can't spend money. He can not fight a war if Congress doesn't give him money for "beans and bullets". In March, the newly-elected Democrat Congress passed a spending bill for the war with a timetable for US troop withdrawal. Bush vetoed it. In May, newly-elected Democrat Congress passed a spending bill without timetables. So among all the discontent with the war, and all the Americans who went to the polls to end the war or change how it was being handled, the newly-elected Democrat Congress gave their voters a fully-funded troop surge with no timetables for a withdrawal of our forces. Good job, voters.

In summary, I addressed one of the most common pleas from pro-vote types. "But what if everybody says that?" This argument is insignificant because everybody doesn't say that. We are discussing rational behavior here. Assuming everybody will abstain is irrational because many people vote. 150 million people will vote in November. I told the class that I have never said that their vote won't count. Their vote will count. However, their vote will not matter. And I reminded them that their candidate isn't going to change their lives at all. I left them with a final thought. I appealed to them to enrich their lives as I had promised they could. I told them to see the opportunity for extra time. Take the hours you will spend at the polls and spend that newfound time with your kids. Play ball with them. Or spend some quality time with your spouse. Do something that really enriches your life. Don't waste your time voting.

I am a news junkie and I have strong opinions. I am cheering for Obama to win, but I won't vote because there's not much of a point. I don't see any situation short of a terrorist attack on US soil ending in a McCain victory. I still feel the same and I hope some of my classmates take my advice. To be completely fair, there is one argument for voting that may bear credit with me. This would be an emotional appeal based on American soldiers who have fought and died for our country and to preserve our democracy. However, I think they also fought for my freedom to not vote. Compulsory voting scares me almost as much as compulsory military service. Plus, this is an emotional appeal and I, on the other hand, am a rational person.

No Conclusion on the EU

noreply@blogger.com (Colin) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 23:31:00 +0000

Ten leading European economists wrote an open letter to European leaders urging a coordinated rescue plan for the world financial crisis, specifically as it implicates European banks. (As ten economists drafted the letter, over 300 more have since signed it as of this writing, see this article).

The letter made the argument that the “piecemeal” actions being taken in Europe will never amount to a solution for the crisis. “The current approach of rescuing one institution after another with national funds will lead to Balkanization of the European banking sector.” The letter went on to say that the US has already learned that bailing out a few giants did virtually nothing to stop the bleeding. Due to the credit-default swap industry, or banks insuring each other’s bad debt, the banks are all tied together as if with rope while trying to stay afloat in deep waters. When one or two go under, they will take others with them.

Those economists are not alone in their assessment. According to a recent Bloomberg article about Europe’s challenges, European Commission President Jose Barroso called on Europe to remove the “mismatch between a continental-scale market and national systems of supervision,” (see this article). The European Union, while comprising 27 different nations with 27 national governments, acts as one financial market with one currency (one currency for 15 member states, anyway). Banks across national borders are deeply intertwined with each other and their relationships affect smaller countries where neither bank is located. So a “systemic crisis demands a systemic response.” Coming up with an aid package that successfully navigates all the multinational bureaucratic red tape involved will prove extremely difficult if not impossible.

Adding to what seems like a perfect storm in Europe is the extreme diversity within the continent. Besides having 27 different governments, 27 different heads of state, and 27 different constituencies to independently please, there are extreme cultural issues to overcome. There are 23 official languages within the EU. Whether generalizing Europe in terms of East vs. West, North vs. South, or Christian vs. Muslim, there is really nothing in common among all states besides soccer. Imagine the possibilities for disagreement over a solution between the Greeks and the Swedes, or the Spanish and the Polish. One doesn’t even have to cross the continent to find such contrasts. England and France, neighbors, are well-known rivals who loathe each other, and my Swiss roommate often has less than kind words to say about the Austrians. Besides the fact that Switzerland has been involved in fewer wars, how many people can detail the cultural differences between those two? I can’t. As the Bloomberg article notes in its lead sentence, “It took the European Union almost three decades to agree on what could legitimately be called chocolate.”

While America is the most diverse country in the world, she has centuries’ experience of dealing with its ethnic, geographic, and economic diversity. America also has the benefit of only one federal government in control. So the US is at an advantage over the EU in executing its comprehensive public bailout of the financial services industry. The House of Representatives voted against the first bailout plan and showed how difficult drafting such a plan will be even in the States. I just can’t grasp how pain-staking of a process it will be for Europe.

In my International Banking class of my graduate program, the professor explained how the European Union was relatively young historically, and that there was no real conclusion on how it will turn out. It has yet to pass the test of time to call it a success. This directly contradicts what almost came to be considered common sense in the media – the US dollar was in the toilet and it would never come out. Some day the Euro would be the reserve currency of choice. I also heard this incessantly from my European friends.

While never arguing with my friends native to the other side of the big pond, I always viewed the fall of the dollar as a normalization of what was long overdue. I thought that the dollar was probably overvalued for the generations that Europe was economically splintered (what I wouldn’t give to be an American in the 80s vacationing in Europe!). Europe finally united and quickly grew its buying power. Imagine how much waste was saved by creating a common financial groundwork and establishing an ease of crossing borders. Imagine the waste, before the economic unity, of all the financial professionals dedicating their time, labor and resources to currency arbitrage alone. The EU became a much more productive, cohesive continent despite its inherent diversity and government fiefdoms.

The EU normalized economic standards and collectively grew faster than ever. The Euro increased in value to somewhere around $1.50. However, most of the economic reforms were planned in 1993 and executed in 1999. Being so young, the EU has yet to pass a significant test such as the global financial crisis we are in today. This is a historic time, especially for the EU. How quickly it can produce a continent-wide solution, and how effective that solution is, will help determine its historical success. As the Bloomberg article explains, the unanimity requirement for changes makes decision-making terribly slow. In trying to solve this problem, it has tried to change rules in favor of a stronger governing body twice. The French and Dutch rejected a constitution in 2004 and the Irish rejected the 2007 Lisbon Treaty (which the Polish were expected to do if the Irish hadn’t). As the crisis deepens and pressure mounts, the financial bloc may hastily push through a plan that satisfies everybody but is ineffective or not ideal.

As the US dollar was artificially over-valued while Europe was an economic mosaic similar to America in the 18th century under the Articles of Confederation, the Euro may prove to be overvalued after it overshadowed the dollar, never having proved itself in the absence of the EU’s ever seeing a crisis. The dollar has already started to gain on the Euro (currently $1.34 / 1 Euro). Only time will tell what will happen. Being one who earns US dollars, I am cheering for a 1:1 ratio someday. But if the EU can successfully come together and take swift, effective action, it will bind the countries even more. This may set the stage for, and I will be dead long before this happens, the conversion from 27 nations in alliance to 27 states in one country: The United States of Europe. In 150 – 200 years, who knows? It could happen.

Wild Weekend in Bogotá

noreply@blogger.com (Colin) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:20:00 +0000

Because I am in Perú on a tourist visa, I have to leave the country every ninety days and return for a new tourist visa and new three months. I had to leave Perú before July 1 so I booked a flight to Bogotá, Colombia for a long weekend. A good friend from America met me in Bogotá to kick off his two week vacation in South America. After the weekend in Bogotá, Dennis will spend a few days in Lima alone and then meet me in Arequipa for my weekend. I had a terribly reckless and irresponsible time in Bogota that left me with the inclination to make my way in life towards Colombia instead of Brazil. Because this post is so long, I have divided the content into subsections: The City (for people who care about what Bogotá looks and feels like), The Play by Play (for people who actually like to read about what we did as drunk American idiots), The Women (for the perverted voyeurs), The Aftermath, and Pictures.

The City

With just over 8 million people in the metro area, Bogotá is slightly smaller than Chicago. Throughout the city, skyscrapers shoot into the skyline in front of a backdrop of green, tree-covered mountains. The elevation is over 8500 ft - another city over 50% higher than Denver. In fact, the mountains behind our hostel were often partially submerged in clouds. Although it is close to the equator, it isn’t hot because of the altitude. Also because it is so close to the equator, the city does not experience seasons. They have one climate year-round, which is relatively temperate but it does rain often.

Our hostel was in a neighborhood called “La Candelaria.” It is the oldest part of town with one-lane streets and old buildings. It is the hipster neighborhood, if such a thing exists in Colombia, where the artists live. The personality of the people, the restaurants, the bars, and the architecture captivated me. Almost every wall on every block was covered in graffiti or a painted mural – many political statements. The neighborhood was also packed with degenerates, bums, and generally sketchy people. It felt a little dangerous sometimes. But if I move to Bogotá, I will probably reside in La Candelaria.

Zona Rosa is the high-end part of town where we ended up drinking every night. Zona Rosa is so nice I couldn’t believe I was in South America. Since my Latin American experience is limited to four cities – Recife, Rio de Janeiro, Arequipa, and Bogotá – I may be going out on a limb here at the risk of inaccuracy. But none of those cities have any area as nice as Zona Rosa. Most American cities, including my hometown of St. Louis, have nothing even close to the size and scale of such a high-end area of consumerism. Zona Rosa features high-end bars and restaurants one after the other interrupted by Hugo Boss, Bang & Olufson, Gucci, and other stores I don’t shop at. Drinks in Zona Rosa, after accounting for the current exchange rate, cost about the same as an average big city in America. Even outside of Zona Rosa, I noted how nice and developed everything in Bogotá was. Again, I was constantly wondering out loud if I was in South America. I could have taken pictures of the streets and passed them off as Florida. That is how run-down Bogotá is not. On the other hand, most of Arequipa couldn’t pass for the depressed parts of LA or Albuquerque.

The only downside to this excellent city is the aggressive panhandlers. We were approached with a hard sell our first afternoon and the pitches never ceased. If a bum speaks any English whatsoever, that bum will make sure to pitch people who look like us. La Candelaria was crawling with them. It seemed as if we always had some loser walking behind us, unwilling to give up the sales pitch that never stood a chance given his prospects.

The Play by Play

I touched down in Bogotá at 8:30 pm. I arrived at the hostel (The Platypus) at 9:30 and actually met Elkin before Dennis did. Dennis has a Colombian co-worker in DC who set us up with a buddy to show us around. After introducing each other and reuniting with Dennis, we hopped in Elkin’s shiny black Benz. We told him we weren’t interested in any sites or views our first night; we just wanted to start eating and drinking. Luckily for Dennis, Elkin spoke fluent English. However, something was lost in translation as we shared a delicious dinner and discussed what we would do that night. Elkin knew of a special party, but should we get some girls first? That sounded like a great idea to me and Dennis. He said he knew some girls that we could get before we go to the club. So we hopped back in his shiny black Benz and headed to a discreet bar on a side-street. We got inside to find a dim bar packed with model-quality women in skimpy clothes. Barely a second passed before Dennis and I looked at each other and realized we were in a brothel. Communication breakdown? The three or four dozen models who were staring at us outnumbered the male patrons at least 5 – 1. MODELS. We told Elkin that we misunderstood him and that we wanted to go to a bar with girls who might let us touch them for free.

He took us to a liquor store to pound some Red Bull and scotch before we hit the party. The party was a techno-club featuring one of Colombia’s most famous DJs: DJ Fruto. The place was packed with beautiful, well-dressed people – a scene as cosmopolitan as anything you could find in New York, Chicago, LA, London, Amsterdam, etc. You couldn’t put together a crowd as beautiful in a smaller city like St. Louis. Unfortunately, they were playing techno and I was looking forward to salsa and a more authentic Colombian experience. I became more and more disappointed that I would have to dance to techno this night. I am a staunch capitalist, but I started to ponder one of Karl Marx’s predictions in the Communist Manifesto: the homogenization of culture. He predicted that in a global economy where money rules, we will see the erasure of languages, values and overall national identities. This is happening as English dominates the language front and techno conquers the dance floor. Why would I come to Colombia to see this party? I have been to this same party on three different continents in five or six different countries. I decided to get really drunk so maybe I could have a good time. I bought a pint of aguardiente (’firewater’, an anise-flavored Colombian liquor) and started chasing it with beer.

My strategy worked well enough that I started dancing. Dennis made out with a fat girl and then escaped her. He and I started dancing with a different group of girls. I put in some time dancing with one in particular - the hottest one with huge breasts and a cute face. I patiently waited three or four songs before I started touching her. Then Dennis started making out with a girl who was not fat. We all went out to the beautiful patio for some air. There was a bonfire, another bar, and jazz music under the beautiful night. I met some gay guys who passed me their joint. I indulged. I started making out with the short hottie I had been dancing with. We made out the whole night. It came time to leave around 3 or 4 am. Elkin, Elkin’s roommate, Dennis and I wanted these four girls to come back to Elkin’s apartment in Zona Rosa. The girls were skeptical. Elkin explained we could all fit in his car. The girls became more skeptical. Elkin was losing the sale so I held my short hottie close to me and told Dennis to not let Elkin talk. Dennis was helpless without Spanish. Elkin disappeared and reappeared behind the wheel of the aforementioned shiny black Benz. The girls were no longer skeptical and we piled in, me in the front seat with my hottie on my lap. Keeping consistency with the club and Benz, Elkin’s posh apartment is smartly decorated and overlooks Zona Rosa. We drank scotch and danced to reggaeton until dawn. At one point, Dennis lied down on the couch and went to sleep. I pulled him up and pointed out the window to the beautiful view of Bogotá in the morning. He admired it and returned to his couch. We passed out on Elkin’s couches that night.

The second day, after a meal with Elkin, Dennis and I went to a museum district which featured the Botero museum, the gold museum, and a few others. I had never heard of Fernando Botero, but have learned that he is the painting pride of Colombia and still alive at 76. I must say I didn’t think much of his painting. He had some kind of fat fetish and only painted images of not just fat, but obese people. Several paintings of naked fat women reclining on a bed or naked fat women from behind. He re-created famous paintings with fat people (e.g., a fat Mona Lisa). You get the point. He did some interesting paintings – one of a house in which a mob had interrupted a party to shoot everybody up. The characters in this painting were still roundish, but not cartoonishly obese. I asked some of the employees of the museum and learned that, in fact, Botero is not fat. Go figure. In old Botero’s defense, his art can’t be that bad if it has provoked this much commentary from me.

Then we toured the Gold Museum with a handful of Colombian girls we met – to be described in better detail in the section devoted to Colombian women. We were thoroughly bored with the Gold Museum despite its being Colombia’s most famous museum and the only one I had heard of before arriving. All of the gold work was small and simple, made by the indigenous tribes of the region pre-Columbus. We hit some more museums and took goofy pictures of ourselves in front of paintings, statues, and whatnot. I am glad we saw the museums, but I was generally unimpressed as I have been spoiled by museum experiences in Amsterdam, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, etc.

After the museums, Dennis and I went for a coffee in La Candelaria because it seemed like we had to drink coffee while in Colombia – like getting robbed in Detroit or getting drunk in Ireland. The coffee was nothing special. There were two girls and an old guy at the table next to us. The girls casually stole glances at us. We finished our coffees and went out in search of food. About a block from the coffee shop, we saw one of the girls walking with the old man. I asked them to recommend a restaurant in the neighborhood. She told us about a great place we could walk to with them as it was on their way. We made introductions and started the walk. I don’t remember what we talked about because we arrived at the restaurant in minutes and said goodbye. After ordering a couple beers and lunch, that girl came into the restaurant – without the old man. She came back to tell me that she is returning to the coffee shop and that we should join her and her friend after we finish our lunch. After she left, I proclaimed “I love this country!” and the bartenders laughed. After lunch, we didn’t go to the coffee shop because the girl wasn’t gorgeous and we wanted to take naps and get drunk.

We took naps and arranged to meet Elkin in Zona Rosa. He had a party to go to. We suffered another communication breakdown in the kind of place we would go to that night. However, this breakdown was not a language failure but rather Elkin not following directions. I specifically told him many times that I wanted to dance to salsa that evening and that I absolutely did not want to hear techno. Furthermore, I explained we wanted to dance salsa in a cheaper place with sleazy women. A more authentic Colombian experience. Elkin took us to another high-end nightclub. It was even pricier and more posh than the first one. Dennis and I agreed that Elkin probably wanted to show off the best of Bogotá as well as show off to his friends that he knows gringos. La Alma was three-stories. The top floor was open-air with techno and the second floor was reggaeton / hip hop.

I was initially annoyed that Elkin had taken us to another kind of place that I can find anywhere in America or Europe. And I had already paid the exorbitant cover so we wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon. The place was crowded so it wouldn’t even be easy to dance. So I decided to drink myself retarded again. I ordered a pint of Smirnoff with some chasers. Dennis and I put down the bottle in about thirty minutes. He expressed concern for how fast I was drinking. I went to the bar for beers. I didn’t tell Dennis until the next day, but I did a shot of scotch at the bar every time I ordered a beer. After some time, my strategy worked again. I got drunk enough to enjoy myself in this place. I knew the words to more reggaeton songs than Elkin and his friends. Then the DJ played House of Pain’s “Jump Around,” to which I always show off how high I can jump for the entire song. After one jump I landed into a ledge and knocked over three or four drinks. I didn’t really feel sorry and the song wasn’t over so I kept jumping. I met some gringo at the next table (we were in VIP). He and the other gringos worked for the American embassy. I started dancing with a couple girls from their group. Then Dennis and I took these two girls upstairs to the techno and fresh air. At some point, Dennis made out with somebody in this bar who I didn’t see. He told me she was smoking hot but a bad kisser. I left to get a drink and Elkin’s roommate was dancing with the girl I had been dancing with and I left it alone. Back downstairs and extremely drunk, the bouncer wouldn’t let me near the American embassy gringos’ table. I didn’t really care. I met some new people – two guys and a girl. I made particularly good friends with one of the guys who seemed to be the girl’s boyfriend. He told me we should go to this other club. I agreed. I can’t understate how drunk I was at this point. I don’t remember this happening, but Dennis explained the details the next day. Apparently, Dennis found me outside and I told him that we are hopping in this taxi and going to a different club. He told me that he has a group of five girls that want to hang out with us. I was so drunk I insisted we go to this other club. According to Dennis, he firmly demanded to know why I was cock-blocking him. “WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU COCK-BLOCKING ME?!” He reiterated that he has five girls with him – one of which he had already made out with and one that was interested in me.

I managed to win the debate and we hopped into the taxi with these new friends headed for the next club. Although he may have been angry that I accidentally cock-blocked him, Dennis conceded the next day that this second club was worth the trip. Located on the top floor of a 41-story building, we admired a view of downtown Bogotá from the balcony high above the city. I don’t remember much of what happened at the club, but apparently Dennis made out with another girl and I drank more alcohol. It was dawn and the skyscrapers, mountains, and lush green foliage looked majestic in the early blue sky. We left around 6am and got to sleep around 6:30.

Sunday was the day I hoped to see the modern art museum of Bogotá. It was far from La Candelaria but we made the trek on foot anyway to learn it is closed Sundays. We weren’t mad because it was in a beautiful park. We took pictures. We returned to La Candelaria on a different street – I think it was called Carrera 9. It was a major thoroughfare with sidewalks completely packed with poor people selling cheap, worthless stuff. There were lots of seemingly sketchy people around. Dennis didn’t like these people. At one point, we heard a loud whistling and three cops took off running toward the sound. Against Dennis’ objections, I insisted we go check out what was going on. There was a punk rock concert in a medium-sized venue. It seemed to be getting out of control inside. Twenty or thirty cops mobbed up outside in anticipation of this concert letting out. We started to notice all the punks in the street with mohawks and torn denim jeans. The cops were preparing to give these punk rockers beatings with batons. I agreed it would be a good idea to leave before the concert let out. We went back to the hotel to take naps.

Sunday night was my last night. I had high hopes for a good time. We went out with these two guys from our hostel – Tom from England and Scott from Scotland. We ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant and drank at a microbrewery called Bogotá Beer Company. Dennis was sick so he wasn’t drinking. I drank for him by taking a double shot of aguardiente every half hour or so in addition to the three foot pitcher of beer I shared with the Brits. I had a great time drinking with these guys and kept trying to find common ground by drawing similarities between America and the UK. I have often heard Americans and Brits, grouped together, being complained about in Europe because we share a culture which drinks a lot, drinks fast, and is loud and obnoxious in the process. I hadn’t drank in such Anglo-Saxon fashion since March so it was fun. We were the rowdiest table in the place and I imagine we annoyed all the other patrons on the patio. We made inappropriate and politically incorrect comments. Dennis doesn’t mind making fun of himself for making out with fat chicks. Scott explained that Equatorial Guinea was rated to have one of the worst human rights records in the world. And then he toasted to never having felt safer in all of Africa. Tom told a story of how drunk he was in Amsterdam’s Red Light District one night. After visiting a prostitute, he stumbled out for more money or booze or whatever. After deciding to visit another prostitute he was embarrassed beyond belief to get undressed and find he still had a condom on his dick. For some reason, the jokes are funnier when delivered in English / Scottish accents and slang. (I still had the old Johnny on!) And then he toasted to how cool the girl was about replacing the used one with a new one. There was a group of girls at a table next to us and we kept talking about one of the girls’ giant breasts, which Dennis insisted were real. We don’t know if they spoke English, but Scott made cup shapes over his chest with his hands a few times so I’m sure they knew what we were talking about. Plus, after a restroom break she came out of the bar with her arms crossed over a newly zipped-up jacket.

Dennis had enough and took a taxi home while Scott, Tom, and I hit an Irish bar for a shot and a beer. Then the Irish bar, the last bar open in Zona Rosa, closed at 1am. We walked around for at least a half hour in search of a bar but the streets were dead. I still don’t understand how a city of over 8 million can completely close down because it is Sunday. We got a taxi. The taxi driver told us the only places open were brothels, which the Brits weren’t in the mood for. We got back to the hostel to look for people – empty. Even worse, the office didn’t have cold beer. Only room temperature beer, which I drank but this prompted Tom and Scott to go to bed. And so I sent for a taxi and went to a brothel. And this brings us to the section of the article completely devoted to Colombian women.

The Women

This is an email exchange between Dennis and I before he arrived in Bogotá.

Dennis to me:

“it sounds like the nicer part of town is in the north (our hostel is downtown). my friend actually suggested we try to find a hostel up in the north, my only problem with that is that all the hostels seem to be downtown so we have a much better chance of finding other travellers (aka easy white girls) but the north sounds like thats where all the locals party. what do you think?”

Me to Dennis:

“easy white girls would be nice, but i wouldn’t get your hopes up for them. the kind of white girls i see here in arequipa are NOT the kind of girls that want anything to do with guys like us. they are the type that are here to go backpacking in outdoors gear, climb mountains and ponder the injustices of the world and shit. we want to meet colombian women! just remember: deep inside of every latina is a very special person that needs - no CRAVES - a tall gringo, his penis and intellectual prowess.”

This email is obviously a joke and I’m being silly. However, it’s funny because there is a hint of truth in it. We were stared at everywhere we went. Dennis told me a group of girls were staring at us on the dance floor the first night. We dismissed it more or less and kept moving to find space to dance. When we found space, Dennis told me that the girls followed us. This was the group that ultimately came back to Elkin’s apartment. I put in a considerable amount of time dancing with my hottie, being patient because I sensed this one might get scared off. I don’t remember how we started kissing, but she was an excellent kisser. We made out all night. Dennis was surprised I didn’t get her phone number. Honestly, it didn’t occur to me. Claudia was very beautiful and very short with huge breasts. I was surprised to learn that she was thirty. I was also surprised when she told me her boyfriend was out of town. I was disappointed when, at Elkin’s apartment, she said she didn’t want to lay on a bed with me. I don’t remember saying goodbye or anything. I just remember waking up on Elkin’s couch alone.

And we got stared at the next day at the Botero Museum while observing (not admiring) Botero’s bizarre fat-fetish art. I noticed a group of five girls taking turns staring at me - maybe at Dennis on accident. I told Dennis that five hot girls are staring at us. He didn’t care. It got even more obvious and I told him again. He didn’t seem to care. Then the ringleader of the group came up to me with a camera and said, “¿Foto?” I assumed she wanted me to take a picture of them. I agreed. Then she gave one of her friends the camera while she and the others jumped in line with me and Dennis to take a picture with us. I was thrilled because they were really hot and clean-looking. Dennis wasn’t thrilled because he thought they were too young. They didn’t think I spoke Spanish so we parted ways. We ran into them later at this big statue of a hand and took more pictures together. They still didn’t know I spoke Spanish so we parted ways again. I insisted to Dennis that two of them had to be at least 21 years old. He sort of agreed.

Outside the Gold Museum, we ran into them again as I caught a glimpse of the ringleader. She was my favorite with a slim physique and an innocent, gorgeous face without a blemish or wrinkle on it. She wore plaid pants that accentuated her beautiful, round bottom. This time she came up to me with paper and pen and said, “Mays-aing-yair?” Messenger? I answered her in Spanish and wrote down our email addresses. Her friends appeared and I proposed we all see the Gold Museum together. They agreed and I started to talk with the ringleader while the others listened. Dennis moped around thinking these girls were too young and wishing he spoke Spanish. I asked the girls if they were students. They told me they were all studying to be teachers. I relayed this to Dennis. At least they’re in college, right? He agreed and started to believe they might be in their twenties after all. The word for “we study” and “we studied” is the same in Spanish – “estudiamos.” I told them that we studied business but they probably believed that we study business (as in we are still students, as opposed to MBAs). Then someone’s dad showed up. Well, we don’t know if he was a dad or who he was, but an older guy came out of nowhere and had a brief conference with the ringleader. He apparently didn’t have a problem with the girls talking to us, but it did made us feel like pedophiles again. They were from some small town hours away, so it was probably a family trip. We all said goodbye after the Gold Museum and I occasionally thought about the ringleader from time to time throughout the weekend. I am a sucker for sweet girls. I remember thinking I could be happy forever with a clean sweetheart like her with her beautiful, caramel-colored face and apple butt.

On Sunday, our last day, I found myself in the lobby of our hostel talking to another hot Colombian. She was telling me Dennis and I should go to Zona Rosa with her and her friend at around 4 or 5 pm. She was really short with huge breasts and a beautiful face. While she was talking, she laid back in this hammock and got comfortable. She seemed so relaxed reclining in this hammock, like a girl you have been with for a long time who is ready to be cuddled and spooned to sleep. I wanted to jump into the hammock and kiss her all over her face. Before I arrived the first night, Dennis walked her to a store down the street. She doesn’t speak any English so they couldn’t talk. But ever since then she was always asking me what he and I were doing and trying to coordinate hers and her friends’ plans with ours. Dennis insisted we ditch them all weekend because neither one spoke English and her friend was ugly. I think she hooked up with this Swiss sissy later that night.

So this should bring us to where I left for the brothel. Your favorite hapless romantic had been dreaming and drooling over the women all weekend long. This was my last night and there was only one kind of place open. Plus, Dennis had made out with four women by this time. If we were competing, I would be losing 4 – 1. A perfect storm developed of my insecurities in losing the game combined with a strong desire for these Colombian women, combined with the fact that I probably wouldn’t have been able to go to bed at 2 am after two nights drinking until dawn. The taxi took me to the curb and pointed out the door. A mustached man dressed in a suit came to the cab and opened the door for me, gesturing me in politely and confidently. This mustached man came to be my primary caretaker in my time here. Resembling a Latino version of Borat, he ushered me into the place, sat me down at a booth, and brought me a Heineken.

I surveyed the field and took a liking for a slim black girl with huge butt and breasts. I took her to a bedroom downstairs within twenty minutes of arriving. It was OK, I was finished in ten minutes or so. She didn’t really seem into it but we got the job done. She had a body as good as God makes them. When I got back upstairs, I realized this was the only bar open and I still wanted to get drunk. So I sat down in the same booth and ordered a shot of aguardiente and another Heineken from Borat. He told me to move from my current table to a table where three girls were sitting. I obliged but focused on my precious booze. The girls left and I drank alone for twenty minutes or so. A caramel-colored cutie walked down the aisle with coat on. She said goodbye to a few people around the place before seeing me. She sat down and started a conversation. She asked how I liked the negrita. I asked her if she wanted a drink as I ordered another shot and a beer. She wanted scotch - the most expensive drink on the menu. I don’t remember what we talked about but it must have been nice and time-consuming because I found myself wanting to be alone with this one. I consulted Borat to see if I could use my credit card for a room if I felt the need, which he told me I could. We were downstairs soon after. While this one didn’t have as much of a brickhouse body, she was hot with wide hips and a cute, brown face. She was the type whose bodily architecture needs to be on top in order to achieve orgasm. In my experience, I have found that this type gets the job done pretty quickly once they are up there. So she was on top, but not sitting up straight because she was also the type that needs constant clitoral stimulation. Her head was right next to mine as she ground herself into my pelvic bone while riding. This is somewhat painful for me. However, I enjoyed her persistence and tenacity in finishing herself off, which must have taken more than twenty minutes. I’ll never forget the spectacular view of the mirror above the bed: her beautiful backside spread-eagle and my disgusting pink balls. After much hard work, she stopped altogether and laid her cheek against mine. Her hair was wet with sweat against my face. We put in a little more effort for my sake, but those twenty minutes left me content. There was a knock on the door to let us know my time was up.

We went upstairs, said goodbye and she went home. It must have been 4:30 and I still wanted to get drunk. I ordered another shot and a beer. This is when drunk irrationality tells me that I had already broken out my credit card. I might as well have a good time, right? Borat asked if I wanted a girl to join me. NO! Thank you, but I am fine. Well taken care of, thank you. He brought me more aguardiente and I noticed a girl eyeing me. She was lighter-skinned (think Italian or Spanish complexion). Very beautiful. She sat down and we started to talk. She was very sweet with something magnetic about her. I usually dislike the personalities of prostitutes and strippers, who are generally cold and completely transparent about only being interested in money. This one refused a drink. She drank club soda with lime. I insisted she drink with me. She didn’t want anything. Borat offered me a pint of aguardiente for 150,000 pesos (about $95). I refused and made a face like he was hurting my ears. I really didn’t need that much liquor anyway. He had a conference with the bartender and I went back to talking with this new whore who I had no intention of having sex with, but was admittedly charmed by. Then Borat came back and offered the pint for 100,000 pesos (about $63). I refused, I really didn’t want a whole bottle. I turned my attention back to my little buddy sitting next to me. She asked me if I liked the two girls. I told her the first one wasn’t that cool but the second one and I had some kind of chemistry. She shook her head at me. Then Borat came back and offered the bottle for 60,000 pesos (about $37.50). His price has come down a full 60%. I finally agreed and he brought the bottle. I already broke out the plastic. Might as well have a good time, right? The girl and I took a shot together. I told Borat to bring a shot glass for himself, for this cop that was working, and for this little fat dude that seemed like he worked there. We had a big toast. Borat took two shots. Then the cop took a second shot. I drank a lot, too. I noticed it was dawn outside and decided I should not go to bed before my 1pm flight back to Perú.

The girl sitting with me didn’t come off like a prostitute at all. She came off like a girl who really enjoys sex. She told me one of her favorite activities: “fumar la marihuana y tener sexo - es RICO.” She really loves to smoke weed and have sex. Really? WHAT A COINCIDENCE! I also enjoy smoking weed and having sex! Isn’t it amazing that we have so much in common? I came up with the clever idea that it might be fun to smoke weed and have sex together. She agreed that it was a good idea. I asked Borat if he could get me some weed. He told me he can’t and I wouldn’t be able to smoke it in the bar anyway. Plus, they were closing soon. However, he would have this little fat dude take care of anything I need from now on. But I would need to pay 50,000 ($31) to the house to take my new honey with me. I agreed and the three of us - me, my hot honey, and Little Fat Dude - hopped into a taxi for an ATM. After getting money, the taxi took us to a disgusting motel not far from the whorehouse. The hourly rate was like 15,000 pesos ($9), which I would pay afterwards. Little Fat Dude took care of all my arrangements and showed us our room. The dingy room had nothing but a bed. The hardwood floors were in need of replacing and the paint on the walls was peeling. Little Fat Dude said he would come back with the weed. My hot honey and I got in bed and couldn’t wait for it. We were naked and I was inside even before I paid her. From the moment I started touching her until the end of our episode, my hot honey was moaning and breathing hard and looking at me with those pleasure eyes. She was on fire. ¡Viva Colombia!

Ten or fifteen minutes after starting, there was a knock on the door. I flung the door wide-open wearing nothing but a condom to surprised Little Fat Dude. He had two joints for me for 10,000 pesos ($6). My hot honey, motionless on her back, didn’t bother covering up. I fumbled through my wallet only to find 50,000 peso bills. I gave him the 50 and told him it was for the motel and the weed. I told him to leave and I don’t want any change (100% tip). I got back inside my hot honey and we lit a joint. We passed it back and forth while I slowly rocked from up top. After smoking most of it and deciding she had enough, she carelessly tossed it aside on the floor and grabbed a hold of my shoulders. This was an amazing sexual experience. I pulled out every trick in my book of how to get a girl off. I went down on her for at least ten minutes while she pulled my head into her pelvis. Before doggystyle, I dove into her butt with my tongue and she said “Oooh, ¡me gusta!” At one point while on top, she was squeezing my chest muscles and shoulders so hard that her nails dug in and hurt. Nobody beats me up. So I grabbed her neck with both hands, choking her while pounding away. For about five full minutes, I was strangling her with both hands, only easing up to allow her a breath every 30 seconds or so.

She started to hurt after a while so we began to relax. Her eyes started to tear up and she began to sob a little. I asked her what was wrong. She told me she has only had sex like that with one other guy - her ex-boyfriend who she had a kid with. Then she started getting hysterical and worried. She said it was so late and she was a mess and I hadn’t even paid her yet. I cuddled her and kissed her on the cheek and told her not to worry. I paid her and she started to come back to reality mentally. She seemed to realize that I am not her boyfriend and she is a whore and this is her job and she has things to do and I would go back to Perú and we would never see each other again. I assumed we would share a taxi to her house and then my hostel. We stepped outside to a bright sun and rush hour traffic. We walked together and talked more. Before I knew it, we were back at the brothel. She said she lived there. “¿Vives acá?” I asked in disbelief. She said she has only been in Bogotá two weeks. Then she asked for a tip. I made a disgusted face and said “No seas fría.” I disappeared into the pedestrian traffic. I bought a beer, lit the second joint, and took a taxi back to the hostel.

The Aftermath

I got back to the hostel at 9:30 am. Dennis, Tom, and Scott were already awake and laughing at me. I told them an abbreviated story. I kept drinking. At the airport a woman at security waved her hand in front of her nose, implying that I reeked of liquor. I asked at my gate if I had time to get a beer before it was time to board. I was told I shouldn’t drink any more because it was against regulations. I went for one anyway. On board, I fell asleep before the plane had backed away from the terminal. I didn’t wake up until the violent landing in Lima three and a half hours later. I became overwhelmed with shame - that shame you feel when you leave Amsterdam. Did I really do all that? Smoke all that? Spend all that? Am I a degenerate piece of shit? Yes, I am.

Then I realized I would talk to Charo soon and felt even more shame. Did I miss you? Of course I missed you, mi amor. Mucho. What did we do? No mucho. I saw some museums. We ate some good food. It was nice to see Dennis again, you know I hadn’t seen him in over a year. I met some British guys who were pretty cool. That was about it, honey.

Dennis’ illness got worse. An email I received from him late Tuesday night while he was in Lima:

“I’m doing a tour of the city tomorrow (if i feel ok) so i should get to see enough to judge but so far i dont think so.

here are my symptoms by day:

Sunday – light-headed, cough, some nausea
Monday – vomiting, fever, I felt so hot i couldn’t even sleep with a sheet
Tuesday – uncontrollable shivering, congestion, BAD fever, runny nose, diarrhea

i think ive covered all the bases so tomorrow i should be good!”

He arrives in Arequipa Thursday and we do it all over again. God help us.

Pictures

The Unsolicited InBev Bid For Anheuser-Busch

noreply@blogger.com (Colin) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:09:00 +0000

Last week, InBev offered $65 / share to acquire Anheuser-Busch. The combination would make the largest beer company by sales revenue in the world. Anheuser-Busch used to hold the title, until Interbrew of Belgium merged with AmBev of Brazil, creating InBev. And then South African Breweries' acquisition of Miller Brewing and other companies dethroned InBev and currently holds the spot. InBev is primarily interested in Anheuser-Busch to gain a foothold in the US market (AB keeps about a 50-share compared to InBev's 2%), but also to add the "iconic" Budweiser brand to its world market-penetrating portfolio.

Before the offer went public, Anheuser-Busch CEO (and fifth-generation family member at the helm) August Busch IV was quoted as saying that the company "won't be sold on my watch." Being from St. Louis and having worked for Anheuser-Busch for two years, I knew he wouldn't be the only one staunchly opposed to the sale. There is a mentality ingrained in the company culture and the city of St. Louis - a strong culture that I never really fit into. Recent news of regional politicians taking preventive actions against a sale also validates the widespread opinion that Budweiser, the world's best-selling beer, should remain American-owned in St. Louis, MO. Missouri governor Matt Blunt has asked the Federal Trade Commission to review the potential deal for potential anti-trust issues - a desperate and futile move given InBev's 2% market share. Similarly, Republican Congressman Kit Bond and Democrat Senator Claire McCaskill have lobbied the Department of Justice in an attempt to block the deal. Several websites have sprung up with names like "www.savebudweiser.com" and "www.saveab.com" to rally support for the company staying in St. Louis. Who do they plan to petition, I don't know. I had heard hints from St. Louis that "The Fourth" had a nuclear option up his sleeve to thwart a deal. Given that the family owns a tiny minority of shares which do not have super-voting privileges, and given the board of directors is up for election in any given year, what could that nuclear option be? It turned out the nuclear option was to buy the remaining 50% of Mexico City's Grupo Modelo (brewer of Corona) that AB does not already own. Such an acquisition would raise AB's price tag $10 billion or so, which would be difficult for InBev to secure financing for in today's tight credit market. The Mexican families which control Modelo have about as good of a relationship with the Busch family as does the InBev management, so a deal isn't likely.

Unfortunately for Anheuser-Busch upper-management, protectionist politicians, and sentimental consumers, $65 / share is a price difficult to refuse. Due to consumer preferences shifting away from macrobrews toward craft brews and imports, spirits, and wine, AB has seen sluggish growth at best. AB's stock price has hovered around $50 for almost a decade. The main reason $65 is difficult to refuse is that there doesn't seem to be an exciting new strategy for growing the business. The most impactful new product of the last five years was Bud Select, a cannibalizing brand which I can't discern in taste from Bud Light. AB secured distribution rights for Monster energy drinks and, ironically, InBev beers in the US - both moves are hardly on the scale needed to significantly boost growth for the nation's leading brewer in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. AB briefly flirted with Brazil in the nineties, only to pull out and never return. AB does own 27% in China's #2 brewer, but margins in China are razor-thin and that asset won't bear significant financial results for a long time. On the other hand, InBev out-maneuvered Anheuser-Busch by dominating Latin America while consolidating a significant chunk of Europe. Soaring food prices (rice, corn, barley and hops) and a weak US dollar combined to create a perfect storm in which InBev is in the position to acquire AB outright, as opposed to the two companies' merger talks of yester-years.

The only rational reason the deal wouldn't happen lies in the cultural differences between the companies. InBev is known as a hyper-effective cost-cutter. They have closed centuries-old breweries in Europe and become a super-efficient holding company that just happens to sell beer. InBev management has been rumored to believe there is a potential $1.4 billion to cut from Anheuser-Busch operations. To the contrary, Anheuser-Busch is a benevolent employer known for generous employee compensation and spending top dollar on marketing initiatives - a contributing factor to its powerful brands. Brand management is Anheuser-Busch's business, core competence and passion. In my first year of employment in Contemporary Marketing, I had a $300 / week expense account for the bars. After a few months, I learned the $300 was more of a minimum than a maximum. One week I spent $1500 and didn't even receive a phone call about it. And every St. Louisan has heard the stories of AB employment perks including free beer, first-class flights, generous pay, tickets to various entertainment, etc. InBev would certainly find cuts, but would these two cultures blend? A private-equity-firm-esque, holding-company mentality and a tradition-rich, patriotic, proud character? The inevitable culture clash presents the only rational reason the two shouldn't join.

It has been reported this week that the world's richest man Warren Buffet, whose Berkshire Hathaway is AB's second-largest shareholder owning 5% of the company, supports a deal. Other large shareholders - the majority of which do not live in the St. Louis area - have been reported to support a deal as well. Aside from political reasons, there is no compelling financial or strategic reason for the deal to not happen. Anheuser-Busch has been almost exclusively focused on US market share in an age of globalization. In my time with the company, every strategic move seemed to be aimed at Miller, Coors, or boosting sales in the mature US market. Meanwhile, I can't order a Budweiser anywhere in South America. (However, I should be able to as soon as Budweiser is in the InBev portfolio.) Without considering how much imaginary value lies in the temporary economic worries of protectionist Americans or sentimentality for an "American company" (regardless how competitive it would not be in the future), the best value for the Anheuser-Busch shareholders and the best opportunity for the Budweiser brand lies in the deal with InBev.

Insightful article by a St. Louis native and financial analyst in favor of a deal:
Sobering Thought: Anheuser-Busch sale makes sense (by David Weidner)

Anticipation of Expatriation

noreply@blogger.com (Colin) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:22:00 +0000

This was my first entry in my AIESEC-mandated blog (The Expatriate Chronicles) about my job and experiences in Arequipa, Peru. I am not there yet, but I want to detail my motivations, expectations, etc. before actually experiencing "the big experience."

Why do I want to leave home? My home is St. Louis, MO. It is a medium-sized, mostly suburban city in the heart of the midwest. I have moved away before (within the States) but always seem to come back. However, I didn't really want to come back last time so much as my circumstances dictated that I come back. It is no secret to anyone that knows me well that my distaste for St. Louis borders on hatred and that it's a foregone conclusion that I would leave as soon as I finished my MBA.

My life here feels so boring that I seem to have gotten back into the habit of getting in trouble. I know this sounds really corny and clichè, but I feel as if I'll be dead or in jail if I don't get out of here. Let me explain. At the downtown St. Patrick's Day Parade a few weeks ago, I punched three guys consecutively in a crowded bar. My cousin told me he thought one had a broken nose because of how much blood there was. I was so drunk I wouldn't have recognized them if I saw them later that night. Two days later at the Dogtown parade, my primary partner-in-crime, George, shot me with a BB gun. I hit him with a full beer. We almost traded blows. Then his Hennessy-drinking friend and I almost traded blows. Then George beat up his Hennessy-drinking friend while I held back the other Hennessy-drinkers so it would be "fair." And at Delmar Lounge after my going-away party, George punched somebody and my brother kicked him in the head. He and his friends waited for us outside but nothing happened because a cop was parked right there. I am not sharing this to be macho or because I think I'm cool. To the contrary, I hate my pathetic life here. I could think of the other interesting nights but they are the same immature, dickhead kind of stories. One time when talking about why we do what we do, George and I agreed that "at least we weren't bored." I hate waking up hung over virtually every day. Lately, it's a miracle if I can get some exercise in before I start drinking again. I love my friends but I don't see them enough to stay. This town is so average, boring, and conservative. There aren't enough interesting attitudes or ideas here to keep my mind occupied. As they say, "an idle mind is the devil's playground." I have a wild side and St. Louis just doesn't offer enough to fulfill my needs in a positive way. When I started grad school, I assumed that I would get a job in New York, Chicago, or some other big business hub.

Well, plans have changed. In August 2006, I left the country for the first time and got absolutely cracked-out addicted to it. The next summer I took two more international trips. Altogether, I spent five weeks in London, Amsterdam, Lithuania, and Brazil. I went to grad school at UMSL, which was ranked eighth in the nation for International Business (tied with Georgetown). I became very active in the International Business Club and AIESEC. I have friends all over most continents. Given the developments, a market research position in New York doesn't seem like it would take advantage of the international focus of my graduate school education. Furthermore, it wouldn't be as exciting as it would have two years ago. So, I have accepted a job outside the US to (A) fully leverage my education and pursue my interest in other countries and cultures, and (B) satisfy my need for adventure.

But why Peru? First of all, everyone has heard of globalization. The world economy of my lifetime will look much different than it did for generations before me. The traditionally "rich" countries' economies will be rivaled by traditionally third world countries. The fall on the Berlin Wall and the phenomenon of the Internet have allowed for an incredible dynamism in human potential. Three specific regions are projected to (and already do) experience explosive growth: Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. Given the state of the world, I want to ride the wave of this economically historic period in an emerging market. But where? Answer: I speak Spanish.

Living and working in any of those three regions would obviously fulfill my need for excitement and adventure. But I would not be telling the whole story if I implied that my fluency in Spanish was the only reason that I was only looking for work in South America and Mexico. I loved Europe but I fell in love with Brazil. Latin culture felt so right for me. The people, the food, the music, the passion! This is usually where someone makes a comment about the women. Yes, I have a track record of dating Latina women. It didn't hurt the case for South America but I am going for the whole package. The excitement is there! I loved Europe but never got the feeling that I wanted to live there. I did get that feeling in Brazil. I am probably very different from other AIESECers in that I don't intend to come back. I bought a one-way ticket. I don't know if I will be in Peru, but I hope to make a new life in Latin America. I even have a backup plan. In case I can't find work in business and need money, I have been certified to teach English. TESOL-certified English teachers are in high demand in every city of every non-English speaking country in the world.

Moving is hard. I do not underestimate the tough challenges and culture shock which lie ahead. There will be things I miss about America. I can guess what kinds of things they will be, but I don't know for sure. I am not forgetting that I had it pretty easy in Brazil with two Brazilian friends to cart me around. Each one had a car. Each one had a ton of educated, English-speaking friends. I didn't have to learn streets, take public transportation, communicate in Portuguese, make my own friends, find an apartment, or any of the difficulties of moving to a new city. I am not ignoring this. I am not unrealistic. And I am not afraid. I have a dream - an abstract dream of becoming a marketing professional who can facilitate international business in Latin America.

Immigration and Protectionism in America

noreply@blogger.com (Colin) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:07:00 +0000

I haven't delved into political subjects in my blogs because (A) the American political system incorporates checks and balances which complement a huge population of diverse opinions so that progress occurs at the same slow rate it always has, and (B) I don't have any grand illusions that I will change anybody's mind. The national trend of toughening immigration laws has made headlines, but has never affected me until recently. Concerning my most important issue, I am prompted to speak out by the recent deportation of one friend plus another friend's boyfriend of five years.

"It's as if we expect border control agents to do what a century of communism could not: defeat the natural market forces of supply and demand ... and defeat the natural human desire for freedom and opportunity. You might as well as sit in your beach chair and tell the tide not to come in. As long as America remains a nation dedicated to the proposition that 'all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,' people from near and far will continue to seek entry into our country." – NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg

I would rather not supply our country's labor needs with illegal labor. I would prefer a policy of bringing in immigrants by the tens of thousands – legally, regulated, and documented. However, given key special interests in the two political parties, nothing has or will be done legislatively to facilitate this so we have gotten along for the last half century with our current system of using illegal labor.

There is, and has been for a long time, a demand for cheap labor in our country. There is a huge supply next door in Mexico. Economics will trump legislation seven days a week. Critics of immigration may say things like "they're taking our jobs" and other such nonsense. The US unemployment rate is 4.9% (January 2008). For those who didn't take economics classes, 4.9% unemployment can be interpreted as full employment. 0% unemployment is not attainable because there are always people temporarily in between jobs for various reasons. Full employment by definition can range from 2 – 7%, depending on the politics of the economist. The highest annual unemployment rate since the Great Depression was 9.7% in 1982 (keep in mind that double-digit unemployment is the norm in many countries). The US does not have an unemployment problem. Considering that many people have two jobs and there are an estimated 13 million aliens who don't figure into those stats, we have a labor shortage.

Critics may also argue that immigration drives down wages. This can be true, but it is exaggerated. A couple years ago, I heard a report on NPR about a study on the illegal labor industry. It focused on 'labor sites' common in Texas and California. In the Los Angeles area, labor sites are Home Depot parking lots. In every Home Depot parking lot out there, you can find a handful or dozen illegal aliens waiting to contract illegal labor. It's a bona fide labor market. Professional contractors, small business owners, or even homeowners who have just bought a bunch of stuff at Home Depot need help with the work. Where else are they going to find manual labor if they don't have sons (like my dad did)? The only labor site I saw in Houston was in the parking lot of an abandoned gas station. Anyway, the study included various findings but what I remember most was that the average wage for this labor was $8 / hour. $8 / hour is over 50% higher than the $5.15 minimum wage at the time of the study! Illegal workers are not competing with Americans on price, undercutting them and driving down quality of life. They are satisfying a need at the equilibrium price set by supply and demand. It just happens that demand for labor is so high that the equilibrium price is higher than the legally mandated price floor of $5.15 – and higher than any of the current proposed minimum wage hikes in Congress.

America has a long history of bringing in cheap labor, starting with indentured servitude as well as, unfortunately, slavery. In the 19th century, boatloads of Irish and German workers arrived at Ellis Island in New York every day. Often, they would be greeted with citizenship immediately – just because they made it here. Someone from Boss Tweed's political machine would give them a bowl of soup and tell them who to vote for. Or an Army recruiter may offer three square meals a day to enlist and fight in the Civil War to preserve the Union – 'give back to your new country!' Italy, Poland, Lithuania, and later Russia supplied much of our cheap laborers in the 20th century. This is how our country has always worked. A passage from 'The New Colossus' (1883) by Emma Lazarus:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Give us your poorest, sorriest, missingest-teeth motherfuckers you got! We want 'em! And they'll work their ass off for a better life. And their kids will bust their ass right into middle class. And those kids' kids will go to college and add to the competitiveness of our country. That is America. In fact, one current, American success story was Russian-born - Sergey Brin, cofounder of Google. I just don't understand how protectionism will help our country.

I can speculate a root cause of anti-immigration. I don't want to accuse anybody of being racist or ethno-centrist. Everyone, including me, has some racial biases. But I have to suspect that a big reason for this anti-immigration is that the current poor-as-shit country sending us labor is sending us brown people. Unfortunately for those who care about what the traditional American should look like, there are no more white countries sending us hundreds of thousands of poor people. Ireland is the economic envy of the EU. They are experiencing staggering immigration! The Soviet Union fell in 1991 and those countries' economies are beginning to develop opportunities. My friend Martynas explained to me that all the Eastern European immigration to the US was over and exemplified this with his own return to Lithuania. If we are to stay on track of being the most dynamic economy in the history of the world, we need to keep infusing the country with hungry, fresh blood. And it's going to come from non-white countries from now on.

"IRISH NEED NOT APPLY." This was a common sign in the 19th century. 'Traditional' Americans did not consider Irish to be white. This is particularly ridiculous. My skin, for example, simply does not tan. 'Traditional' Americans didn't think the Irish would ever assimilate. Many of the complaints about Mexican-American communities are the exact same as the 19th century complaints about the Irish and Italians. Those complaints proved wrong, as those communities have completely assimilated. A majority of white Americans claim some Irish heritage, or at least on St. Patrick's Day. Companies like Pizza Hut and Domino's have made pizza an American endeavor in the world. When I was a kid, nobody knew what a quesadilla was. Now they're on almost every menu in every town. And isn't the margarita basically an American cocktail by now? I realize I may sound corny and overly optimistic about our melting pot and great experiment. But fuck you! This is what I believe and history supports me. The average complexion of America is going to get a little tanner.

I realize that ethnocentrism / xenophobia is not the only reason people are opposed to immigration. Unlike the European countries across the Atlantic Ocean, we are land-locked with Mexico, so the sheer volume is unprecedented. Also, research shows that illegal populations put a drain on certain public resources – schools, hospitals, etc. The new immigration may need a mandate for English proficiency. Realities of terrorism require greater scrutiny than ever before of who is coming in. Regardless, all of these issues can be addressed and resolved. But we have to start with the understanding that, for the good of our country and economy, we need to constantly bring in hundreds of thousands of immigrants.

The US does not only need immigrants at the bottom of the economic totem pole. Last year, consulting firm McKinsey released a report detailing the reasons for a decline in initial public offerings on Wall Street. New York is facing tough competition from other cities with major stock exchanges. Some predict that NYC will lose its place as the world's leading financial center within a decade. McKinsey cited two main reasons for companies' decisions to list IPO's in other countries: the expensive financial reporting needed to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley (post-Enron legislation) and tough immigration policies which restrict companies from bringing in high-skilled professionals. Because we make it so hard to come into our country these days, financial services firms and great companies are going to cities like London, Dubai, and Hong Kong. If we don't make it easier to bring in Chinese, Indian, or other foreign professionals to comprise the strongest banks and financial services, the strongest banks and financial services will be in other countries. I don't care where the best talent is from; I want the biggest banks and best companies with the most money to be in America.

I find it ironic that many of the typical anti-immigration types are the same ones to feel so threatened by China. China has 1.3 billion people. India has 1.1 billion people. The US has 300 million people. If you really feel threatened economically, wouldn't you want to close that gap a little? If not, go sit in your beach chair.

Memoirs of a Frat Boy: Organizational Culture and Personal Growth

noreply@blogger.com (Colin) — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

An artistic, intellectual-type friend of mine once asked me of my fraternity experience, "Is that really all you do in a fraternity – get drunk and try to sleep with girls?" I replied without hesitation, "Yeah, pretty much." I didn't see it that way when I was in the fraternity, but they say hindsight is 20-20. We use to talk about scholastics or community service or principles. But as more time passed since college, it became more and more obvious that that was all lip service to justify what we really wanted to be doing – getting drunk and trying to sleep with girls. Seriously, is scholastic achievement really a priority of a fraternity that sees only about half of its members graduate? Or do you really think we enjoyed serving the community of Bel-Ridge? Do I do community service now? Do I do anything to help anybody beside myself? Of course not.

So for a long time after college I began to view the Greek life as nothing more than an efficient way for large groups of college-aged men and women to get wasted and hook up. That is probably still the case, but I've recently realized something else about the whole deal. The realization stemmed from a couple nights with the old crowd – a bachelor party and a wedding. I rarely see my fraternity brothers anymore. The guy I've seen the most in the last year is a guy who has just finished six months in Europe. I don't know how it got that way, but it did. I actually didn't even want to go to this bachelor party despite the fact that the groom was my pledge brother and roommate for a year. Another pledge brother who was throwing the party guilt-tripped me into going. To understand why I didn't want to go, imagine that situation where everybody at the party used to be your best friends that you hung out with every day. But now, five years later, you don't have their phone numbers. And at the end of the night they're not going to ask you for yours. There's just something awkward in the air.

And that something was in the air when I first got there. But that something went away and I had a great time. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. I haven't laughed that hard all night long in an even longer time. I don't even remember what was funny. I do remember when Craig passed out and Miller laid his balls on Craig's forehead while everybody took pictures for the Internet. And I only remember that because there are pictures. The night of the wedding was the same. Ponce was catcalling and howling in the church. Jimmy did 'the kick' while escorting his bridesmaid into the reception. Craig and Henderson took it down to wife-beaters on the dance floor (is this '98 or '08?). I used to be a member of the wife-beater-on-the-dance-floor club, but I didn't have one on. I don't even own one anymore. How did those get phased out of my closet? What the hell happened? Did I sell out? I think my ex-girlfriend probably threw them all out some day when I wasn't home. I really wished I had one on at that moment!

At times over the years, this crowd annoyed me with the catcalling, the whistling, the constant joking, and the complete inability to be quiet for any length of time no matter where we were. I did three years in Corporate America after college. I tried to 'grow up', get serious, be an adult, etc. I used to think 'Why were they so immature and obnoxious'? In order to drive home my upcoming point, I'm going to have to illustrate our chapter's culture. If you weren't in a fraternity, you probably think they are all the same, which is probably true from the big picture. But in the micro-details, the cultures are very different. Keep in mind that our fraternity was far from typical, as was our school. Most Greek systems thrive at huge universities in small towns (Mizzou in Columbia) as opposed to commuter schools in relatively big cities (UMSL in St. Louis). Our situation isn't typical of the vast majority of schools. The house down the street was comprised of the laid-back, pretty boys. If you were nerdy or not good-looking, you didn't have a chance of getting in to that house. The average member of that house probably got laid more often and with hotter women than the average member of our house. The house across the street had more introverted guys. While maybe a little socially awkward, they probably put out the most graduates and achieved students who got, on average, better jobs after college. Our house, I may have implied, was the animal house of obnoxious hoosiers ('hoosier' is STL terminology for white trash). If we have any claim to fame, it would be that we won all the sports and threw the biggest parties. If (when) our house wins Greek Week next year – an annual Olympics between frats – it will be the tenth consecutive title. Concerning parties, the other two houses competed for Saturday night while we monopolized Friday night. I always assumed it was established years ago that, if either house tried to compete with us for turnout on Friday, they knew they would suffer more than if they competed with each other. So the rational decision for them was to share Saturday.

We had a diverse house. Nerds got in. But at the same time, someone with natural charisma wasn't guaranteed a leadership spot. One thing probably unique to our house was the relentless joking, clowning, and teasing. If you were fat, if you were a hoosier who wore jean shorts, if you had a speech impediment, if you wore a Figaro chain, if you were pussy-whipped by your girlfriend, if you acted like a hard ass when drunk, if you were caught reading Harry Potter, or whatever your problem was, you would be made fun of as much as possible for it. Any weakness whatsoever was exploited to the max. Every opportunity was taken advantage of to have a laugh at your expense. No one was spared. Not everybody can do that. Some got in the fraternity but later went their own way because they couldn't hang. If you were insecure or took yourself too seriously, life with this crowd was hell.

I think this is why I had so much fun this time around. Now that I'm NOT trying to grow up and get serious. Now that I'm not employed by a name-brand, blue chip company. Now that I'm a broke-ass server / bartender with no health insurance. Now that I haven't been laid in some months and I get dumped a lot. Now that I drive a '89 Pontiac with over 200K miles and I have to keep jumper cables in the trunk. Now that I have moved back into my parents' house and I turn 29 in March. And most importantly, now that I don't give a fuck what you think about it, bitch.

I come around the old guys with this mentality and they're not just funny. They're real fucking funny. I mean who can resist Ponce or Jimmy? Or Miller when he's in dickhead-mode in a conversation with someone he has just met. He has identified the kryptonite in their self-esteem and has gone for the throat with insults. She'll be crying herself to sleep that night. How can you resist Berra doing party-boy? I don't care what you think is funny. You haven't seen funny until you see a really hairy, fat guy in nothing but a jock strap and bow tie doing bodybuilder poses in the middle of Natural Bridge. And you just can't resist Henderson being Henderson – whatever attention-craving stunt it is that night which will end in hilarity. Whether you're laughing with him or at him, you will be laughing.

Do I even have a realization here? I don't know. I made a lot of great friends and had a lot of fun after my days in college and the fraternity. And I'll still make more friends and have more fun. However, I'm starting to wonder whether I'll ever laugh as hard as I did with those guys. It's a dismal realization for sure. I gotta go. I'm headed to Wal-Mart to pick up a pack of A-shirts (AKA, wifebeaters).

Eurotrip 2: East vs. West

noreply@blogger.com (Colin) — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 22:43:00 +0000

Charlie People

In between the summer and fall semesters, I spent another week in Amsterdam and a week in Lithuania. Amsterdam was the same as last year yet there were noticeably fewer Charlie people. I didn't define Charlie people in the first Eurotrip blog, so I will now. Charlie people stand around the Red Light District and Dam Square selling cocaine. They assume we are from England, where cocaine is known as 'Charlie' (as opposed to coke, blow, etc.). There were platoons of Charlie people saturating every block of the tourist areas last year. Their sales tactic is definitely a hard sell, as they don't accept obvious attempts to ignore them or just one 'no.' Anyway, they are still annoying and I have a personal resolution that, if I ever go back to Amsterdam, I will hit a Charlie person. A right hand to the chin for the first one to annoy me. My resolution is documented. I am on record.

Ivan Drago and The Bolsheviks

Anyway, I'm not spending too much time thinking about Amsterdam or I might end up with another flight booked, which is the last thing I need. I want to share my experience in Eastern Europe. I was in the former Soviet Union, our enemy for most of our parents' lives and almost half of mine. I love to characterize the American mentality during the Cold War with the brilliant film, Rocky IV. Remember how the evil Soviet machine produced the blond haired, blue-eyed Ivan Drago (played by Dolph Lundgren), the juiced-up mammoth who killed Apollo Creed in the ring (while Creed wore USA flag trunks). So the Italian Stallion had to come out of retirement despite doctors' warnings of brain injury to face Drago because he wanted to avenge his friend's death and score one for Team America – which he did by KO with his signature left hook in the final round.

Cold War propaganda from Hollywood was great! Remember the Bolsheviks? Not the political faction that ultimately formed the Communist Party in Russia. The Bolsheviks – the WWF tag team wrestlers Nikolai Volkoff and Boris Zukhov. They wore red leotards with the hammer and sickle logo, and Nikolai actually sang the National Anthem of the Soviet Union before each match. Wrestling has changed quite a bit, but back then wrestlers were clearly defined as either good guys or bad guys. And in the 80s, the Bolsheviks were definitely bad guys. Anyway, I first heard of Lithuania when it became the first country to secede from the Soviet Union. Where did I get this news as such a young boy? The WWF wrote it into the plot that Nikolai was Lithuanian. The Bolsheviks broke up because Boris was angry that Nikolai had abandoned the Communist creed while Nikolai resented Boris for the Soviets' brutal oppression of his countrymen. Not only did this break up the team, they had to fight! They fought in St. Louis at the Arena. I was there! Dad took Ryan and me, as we were devoted fans. So Boris entered the Arena first and was booed and jeered. We wanted to beat his pinko ass. Then, on the other side of the ring, a spotlight illuminates Nikolai waving a huge American flag. And the crowd goes wild! My Lithuanian buddies love to hear this story about the Lithuanian hero being cheered while waving the American flag just before he triumphed over Boris in the ring, just as capitalism triumphed over communism. Wow, I've gotten well off point here. I guess I wanted to provide some context in case you forgot who the designated bad guys were before 9/11, Bin Laden, the Taliban, and Iraqi insurgents. Side note: any American male who didn't watch wrestling as a kid is a pussy and should not be trusted.

Lietuva: E Sveikata!

So Chuck and I went to Lithuania to see Martynas, who we knew from college. Martynas spent six years in the states before returning to Lithuania. His country has plenty of opportunity for persons educated in business, as their open economy is flourishing. I knew Eastern Europe was growing, but I had never seen what a fast growing economy looks like. Martynas' tenth floor studio is in a brand new building. From the ground outside his building, I counted fifteen cranes on the horizon. Fifteen! If you see three cranes in downtown Clayton, you have major development. And here I could see fifteen in a town I had never heard of before I booked the flight there. It was ironic that, amid all this development and a brand new strip mall, Martynas' tenth story view was of the biggest, ugliest projects I've ever seen. Soviet-era government housing. Six-story, grimy grey concrete buildings stretching for at least a mile long and three hundred yards back. Old Town Vilnius is beautiful, but I wanted a postcard of this vast view of depression. It was awesome! Why don't they make postcards of that? Then I realized that there is some seriously hideous urban decay in North St. Louis that is interesting to look at. I guess the Arch, Cathedral, and Union Station is the only stuff that sells.

The contrast is remarkable. They have this long history of a Gross National Product equalling jackshit. Ugly evidence of that time lies right next to brand new, shiny, nice things. There are brand new luxury houses throughout the country with crazy modern architecture. One day we drove to a girl's brand new house in a brand new neighborhood that didn't have paved roads yet. They built a ton of big, nice houses and still had dirt roads! I went inside a brand new shopping mall that, although almost empty, was just as nice as South Coast Plaza in Orange County or the Galleria in Houston. All the hotels were booked in Polanga. We ended up renting a room in some local family's home. They sent their hot daughter to stand in the street with a sign to advertise. They are chasing that money. Restaurants had ten-page menus laminated and glossy with pictures of food (rare in Western Europe). Menus had full-page ads for beer brands and liquor companies. There were ads in restrooms for stretch-Hummer limo rentals complete with price schedules. There were video commercial billboards along streets in towns like Kaunas. Motion picture billboards aren't very widespread in America, but here they are in these small Lithuanian towns. In Western Europe, locals would be offended by such unabashed corporate advertising. It would be an appalling eyesore, disturbing to the natural beauty of the city. Not here. One club put the whole bar staff and waitresses in Bacardi uniforms. In Western Europe, this may be degrading or an invasion on the employees' personal style. Not here. I can see the owner with a big check from Bacardi in his hand saying to the employees, "This is what you're wearing, bitches." (In Lithuanian)

One day, Martynas pointed out some Soviet-era statues. Standing thirty feet high, a woman with long hair in a long dress is looking toward a man. The brawny man wears simple clothes, holding a hammer (I swear he was holding his hammer in one hand). He is gesturing forward with his other hand. From her posture, the woman seems skeptical. I asked Martynas what it means. "A better tomorrow or something." A better tomorrow? The better tomorrow is here - today! The better tomorrow is this shameless consumerism in a capitalistic orgy. Nobody had anything for a long time. And now they want everything.

The Eastern European Scowl

You don't really get the pacifist vibe of Western Europe in Lithuania. Guys are more likely to have muscles, wear a Nike sleeveless with a gold chain, and a disapproving scowl to top it off. They look like they are ready to kick some ass if the situation calls for it. I first noticed the scowl on the first bouncer at our first club on our first night. He was a spitting image of the stereotype of a Russian mob henchman. If he were put in a movie, he would be cast to play the role of Russian Thug 2. Martynas told me there were a lot more scowls around when he was younger, especially in his hometown of Kaunas. In fact, he was kind of an outcast because he wasn't a mainstream 'jumpsuit guy.' He described jumpsuit guys, actually mainstream when he was growing up, as guys with shaved heads wearing jumpsuits and gold chains that generally started trouble and got into lots of fights. In fact, he explained, if they're not getting into trouble then they're not having fun. I was actually mistaken for a jumpsuit guy at a club and almost refused entry. You see, I really had to pee so I was walking really fast ahead of my slow-as-shit friends. I bound up a few stairs and approached a crew of bouncers to pay the cover, eager for sweet bladder relief. All three bouncers stood up to block my way, speaking in Lithuanian. Clueless, I shook my head. (No comprendo?) The ringleader asked Martynas, "Jis normalus?" Is he normal? I have no idea what Martynas said. He probably told him that this American, although big, is actually quite a pussy with a glass jaw. He also has a pocket full of Litas to blow in a hopeless attempt to get laid. Whatever he said, it worked. Apparently the clubs don't want jumpsuit guys groping women and picking fights – I assume that's what they do because that is what the Lithuanian UMSL students did at our frat parties. And while I was not wearing a jumpsuit and gold chain (I must have left that uniform back in St. Louis), I do have a big bald head. But no scowl.

The Scowl vs. The Man-Bag

Martynas and I agree that the number of scowls is probably negatively correlated with economic growth. Another driving force in the reduction of scowls may be the man-bag. Like the jumpsuit guys, I had heard about this man-bag at Martynas' going-away party before I went to Lithuania. It's a miracle I remember anything because I was so shit-housed off vodka and Pilsner Urquell that I got into a head butting exchange with Pavel, which I lost. I was so wasted the next morning I missed the agreed-upon time to meet my mom and drive to Michigan. I woke up to her banging on my apartment door and let her in while I was still butt-ass naked. So I was really wasted during a conversation that went something like this:

Me: "I'm going to Lithuania."

Gedas: "E Sveikata!" (We do shots of vodka)

Me: "Martynas told me to stay away from the jumpsuit guys."

Gedas: "You'll be fine, man. The country is changing so much, man. There are so many fucking pussies, man. They wear these fucking bags with a strap. You know what I want to say?"

Me: "Like a man-purse?"

Gedas: "Yes! A fucking purse! They get this shit from France or I don't know. These fucking faggots with this goddamn purse. I want to beat these fucking faggots. They are ruining my country. Somebody should just fucking beat on these faggots. Just beat these faggots with the fucking purse." (Then we probably shoot more vodka and Pavel head-butts me)

Gedas was right. Not about using derogatory, homophobic language. He was right about the prevalence of man-bags in Lithuania. They were everywhere. I distinctly remember the first time I noticed. Two short, skinny guys came in the club wearing Euro-designer clothes. Each had one hand on the man-bag to steady it at the waist while walking. It looked ridiculous. The bags were tiny. They were big enough to hold a wallet and a cell phone. Maybe keys. There is more strap than bag. At least women's purses provide functionality, as women need so much more shit than us. Makeup, tampons, condoms, Midol, morning-after pills, vibrator, etc. But these man-bags were all show. And they will probably be a major reason for the Eastern European scowl becoming an endangered species someday. The man-bags vs. the scowl. This will determine the face of the future Eastern Europe.

Conclusion

To conclude, I prefer Eastern Europe to Western Europe. Why? Because the women look so much better and the business opportunity is so much greater. Overall however, Eurotrip 2 taught me that I don't really like Europe. If you read the Brazil blog, you'll recall my description of people being warm or cold. Europe is the fucking winter. Everybody is too cool for school. Nothing excites them and they don't care to meet you. I am not like that. I like to get excited and be crazy. I love to have fun and embrace people who are cool. I like good music and girls that are honest and upfront. While in Amsterdam, Chuck and I were waiting on a bus. We were going back to the hostel to regroup. Across the street was a hole-in-the-wall bar with no sign -- just the flag of Brazil. And at the entrance, two scantily clad garotas shaking up caipirinhas. Chuck and I beelined it over there to get a few drinks. By the time I left, I had made five or six friends - all Brazilian. I managed to meet like 12 Brazilians in Amsterdam. Eurotrip 2 reminded me that Latin America is where I want to be. Don't worry Martynas. If I do come to Europe, you can bet your ass I'll be within one country from you.

Miscellaneous

The women in Lithuania are amazing - if you like slim, white women. I recall thinking that a full 60% of Lithuanian women, if moved to the US, would be in the top 10% here.
The food is terrible. There is a reason there are no Lithuanian restaurants in America. You'll only see what I mean if you go there. After one meal, I told Martynas and Chuck that it was the best meal we had in Lithuania so far. Martynas was pissed because it was a Greek restaurant.
The beer sucks too.
The cost of partying is great. We got 2.25 Litas per 1 USD. I was buying bottles of champagne in one of the hotter clubs in downtown Vilnius and sharing with the gorgeous women. However, Lithuania will soon change to the Euro, which may hurt Americans' buying power.

Ivan Drago:

Russian Shanson - jumpsuit guys listen to this: