juiceboxjuicebox

Lidge, where you at?

2008-08-02T12:41:00.000-07:00

Click on the link to be directed to the boat´s most recent location.

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?&glId=0EM90M9z0UDpcgjFBi8lqHIerbDuk3yhe

We should be in Acapulco for 2-3 days.

My Clothes are Salty

2008-07-24T08:48:00.000-07:00

There are things you miss as a land lubber that become quite apparent at sea. For one, the Earth is round. One can note this by observing that bright city lights sink into the ocean as you go away from them at night. The Moon rises more swiftly than one might imagine and can actually startle you as it appears on the horizon. This phenomena is hard to notice in the Northwest where the horizon is obscured big ugly snow capped mountains and fetid evergreen trees. For a brief moment the Moon is actually shorter than you and if you catch it at just the right time you can stare it down without looking up and say ¨Dude! Not cool! You scared the crap out of me¨. In addition dolphins are amazing and are hard to photograph as they jump, Sea Turtles look like floating cow pies, dead Sea Turltes smell like floating cowpies, and flying fish want out of the ocean so badly that they tend to commit suicide on the deck of one´s boat.

Humans behaivior is interesting to observe at sea as well. It´s amazing what sleep deprivation, isolation, and stress can do. These three factors combine so thatI was completely unable to operate the video function on my camera to get footage of my dad singing and waiving to the dolphins off the bow of the boat. That caliber of paternal novelty is typically unseen.

Our winds have been slow and on the nose so most of my journey from Panama City to Acapulco has known only 24 hours of continuous motoring. It doesn´t sound so amazing until you factor in shifts of 4hrs on and 8 hrs off, temps in the 90s ,and that your bedroom has the biggest diesel engine you´ve ever seen in it. I like it. It makes you feel like you´re on a mission.

As hard as it is to be away from my life in Seattle its good to know that I am here helping my dad and Judith get the boat home and have fun doing it. I´ve promoted myself to Chief Stress Management Officer which involves back rubs, yoga lessons, and constant emotional check-ins. I think these things combined with the intergallactic crew we have right now is doing the trick.

Still and all I do miss Laura, Seattle, showers, dogs, and the third trimester of Carey Christie´s pregnancy. Not having any money begins to weigh too. In the extensive down time that exists I have decided to fully embrace my nature as boredom prone and make the search for novelty my chief project. Current means: hip stretches, yoga for uneven and moving surfaces, the guitar, staying hydrated, charting meteorlogical and astrological data, and making lists. Here´s two now.

Current Tallies:
-shooting stars in an evening: 17
-Sailfish: 1
-approximate difference in sunset time per day as we move north: 15 minutes
-retrieved messages in bottles:1
-Beers with Dad: 22
-Deserts made with one rum bottle: 3

Current linguistic obsessions:
-When life gives you chickens you make mayonaise
-Acapulco + Pull tabs = Acapulltabs
-Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oy, Oy, Oy!

Back in the Saddle Again!

2008-07-14T16:21:00.000-07:00

Habitual readers may know that I am not lost in Vietnam as my posts would indicate but in fact found my way home to Seattle quite well. Just in time for a late blooming Seattle summer too. Those perfect skies and floofy clouds and whiskey swilling friends were just the tonic I needed to counteract the affects that four months of humidity, tonal langueages and Tuk Tuk drivers can rack up on one´s body and mind. Steping into SeaTac airpot was sweet perfume for this tired soul.

As circumstances would have it, my arrival in Seattle coincided with my father´s arrival in Panama with his undercrewed boat. He purchased ¨Cheeky¨ in the great lakes and was in the act of sailing south and unfortunately his volunteer crew had to leave. Out goes the call to the son and I´m back in equatorial climates for the time being writing to you all from an internet kiosk on the Pacific side of the Panama canal. Please send temperate weather, hummous, and sarcasm.

Today we kicked an Antiguan gentleman, Speed, off the boat for being a combination of Bipolar, bossy, an alcoholic, high on shore and just plain rude and creepy. Short and sweet for now.

Let Saigons be Saigons or This Entry is for My Parents

2008-04-30T18:15:00.000-07:00

Back when Tanya Harding was in her trial, in which she was convicted of conspirciacy to be a totaly coniving selfish waste, she had a shirt with the words "no comment" printed on the front that she wore to exit the court room. Entering Saigon one wishes for a similar item perhaps with a message like "No boom boom", "No smoke smoke", or " Khong mua (no buy)". I am hopelessly adverse to complaining, so I won't, but let's make a list of positives, shall we?

-Saigon makes me appreciate Bangkok more.
-Saigon taught me that at times I'm willing to physically threaten/curse at children under six.
-I learned to clutch things that I do not want stolen by scooter bandits.
-Asking the price for anything, even a seeming act of goodwill or piece of advice is a good idea.
-Calling women "Mama" who are over 40 makes them laugh and like you.
-Calling women "Mama" who are under forty invites scorn and somehow makes the eggs they serve you exceptionally runny.

In short, I am pleased to have moved north away from Saigon. I've been several places of varying degrees of interestingality and am now in my own little slice of heaven called Hoi An*. Its Vietnamese independence day(s) now. The holiday was originally designated to celebrate freedom from French rule but has come to also refer to freedom from Japan and the "American Imperialists". The resentement I felt for my mere existence in Saigon is flipped two and a half times around topsy-turvy into profound instant brotherhood by the following exchange which one can have as often as one wants during this holiday.

VN: "Hello! My friend! You buy something. Where you from?"
Ben: " Hello, My friend! U.S.A.........Amerigah"
VN: "Awhhhhhhhhhh" (It is difficult is ascertain the emotion behind this response)
Ben: "Happy Independence Day!"
VN: (Insert knowing eye twinkle here with handshake and hug) " Good! Good! You drink Beer!"

It was several exchanges like this and the friendliness of my traveling companion, Swiss Frog leg fiend, Lionel that led to my gaggle and I being invited to an all male karoake and Saigon Red binge. I'll admit, its weird to be invited straight from the beach to roll 5km in a scooter posse to a private karoake room with a bunch of lit Vietnamese. Red flags with names like "Rufees" , "Theft" and "Extortion" come to mind but luckily they were no match for the green light called "These guys are rad and insist that we don't pay for a thing". After a bit I started miming the action of drinking just not to insult my hosts and still manage to walk out under my own power.

I guess I'm writing about this experience not because I wish to relate a unique moment of international brotherhood but more as another resume point in my ever expanding file of why I have more kaorake mojo than Miss Betsy Morris. My oeuvre now includes my Khmer new year Korean Hip Hop freestyle rap in Sihanoukville Cambodia, Three spot on Vietnamese duets, Feliz Navidad in three languages, and the fact that I still rock "Hit Me with Your Best Shot" harder than she can.

Self-aggrandizement aside, the spirt of the Vietnamese is starting to come through to me more clear. As an American I cannot help but admire a people that says "NO!", "Hell NO!, and "Fucking Helllllll No!" to multiple groups of invaders per century. Who cares if they are communist, socialist, or capitalist they are definitely not defeatist. I toured the Cu Chi tunnels and during a 15 m, 45 second crouched walk/crawl under 5m of packed clay I was overcome by the fear of pitch black, being lost, claustrophobia and was instantly covered in buckets of sweat and dust. I wanted out and was scared and I wasn't even fighting a war against vastly more well equipped invaders.

The best part of the Cu Chi tunnel memorial/museum are the traps, usually a variation on the theme of poisoned bamboo spikes in a whole covered with leaves. I think I'd rather trip a claymore than fall into one of these and be left to bleed to death . The amazing part to me was the mural depicting bumbling American G.I.'s stumbling into the things. I wish I had a picture of the mural because only would a people who had an immense hatred for the people destroying their country would depict such graphic brutality inflicted on white people dressed in drab olive fatigues in a museum. I'm sure every brush stroke was filled with delight.

Weird feeling. The whole "Happy Independence day" brotherhood phenomenon and the Saigonese** "You may be a tourist in this town but we don't owe you shit and if I want more of your money I'm going to lie to your face, change the agreed price and feign monolingulism" phenomenon makes for an interesting travel experience. Makes me respect my parents more. They spent something like six years hear. My mom lived in Saigon while my dad flew things. I was impressed by the beach shells in the shitty resort town of Mui Ne so I grabbed a handfull of the spirally pink and purple ones and will clean them, split them 50/50 and send them home. My mom will get hers is about 3 weeks and my dad will get his in about 3 months when he gets back from sailing his new boat from Lake Michigan, up the Saint Lawerence River, down to Bermuda, through the Panama canal, up the west coast and home to Friday Harbor in Washington. Go Dad. I'm proud of you.

I want both of them to have something beautiful from this country that I can only imagine caused them so much pain.

p.s. I g-chatted with my mom and she said that I was the last of her kids to make it to Vietnam. I am grateful to have the good fortune to be able to choose the right time to come here.

*Note to Jeff Larson. Hoi an is an anagram for Hanoi.
**Now Ho Chi Minh City of course. I use the old word for poetic continuity.

Finally some pics

2008-04-18T01:49:00.000-07:00

Flickr.com

username : juiceboxjuicbox

I've decide to adopt the "Slow and steady wins the race" attitude to putting up pictures/comments etc rather than trying to do it all in one swell foop.

Expect my photostream to be organized a little bit every time I get computer access, and of course linked to from this blog. The one above is of Ryan, Andre and I in Don Det, Laos. The beach there got trashed by drunks every night after the generators shot off at 10pm. We would pick up cigarette butts every morning and eventually decided to make a sign reminding folks to pick up after themselves. The pic was taken right after a pig roast we threw as a goodbye to the wonderful island and right after we pounded the sign into the ground.

Tomorrow I go to Vietnam.

Finally some pics

2008-04-18T01:27:00.000-07:00

Flickr.com

username : juiceboxjuicbox

I've decide to adopt the "Slow and steady wins the race" attitude to putting up pictures/comments etc rather than trying to do it all in one swell foop.

Expect my photostream to be organized a little bit every time I get computer access, and of course linked to from this blog. Here is on e of Ryan, Andre and I in Don Det, Laos. The beach there got trashed by drunks every night after the generators shot off at 10pm. We would pick up cigarette butts every morning and eventually decided to make a sign reminding folks to pick up after themselves. The pic was taken right after a pig roast we threw as a goodbye to the wonderful island and right after we pounded the sign into the ground.

Tomorrow I go to Vietnam.

I got 99 problems but the lack of an Open Water Diving certificate ain't one. HIT ME!

2008-04-13T06:02:00.000-07:00

It's the Khmer new year. It's a nice time to be here if you either abhor your dryness, or think dryness is a boon. You see its like this; the Khmer/Lao/Thai new year is a 3 day party for locals and if you're in Thailand you will get splashed with water by strangers all day everyday. In Cambodia people rub Talcum powder on your face. It's an interesting dichotomy. I don't know what they do in Lao but I can only imagine, like with most things that it is somewhat of a mix between Thailand and Cambodia.

Oh yeah, the diving is amazing here too. Imagine flying through the set of Fraggle Rock and The Dark Crystal at the same time in 85 degree water. 4 dives in 3 days and I must say, I highly recommend it. It's like the Grand Canyon, sex, and seeing Daft Punk live; you can describe it to someone but they will never really understand it until they do it for themselves. I like it so much I have considered smashing this whole "teaching English"bru-ha-ha for becoming a dive instructor. We'll see. All I can say now is that the folks at The Dive Shop in Sihanoukville, Cambodia have been very nice and seem to think I am the same. They like it when I freestyle rap to Korean hip-hop karaoke and they let me stay at the shop for free.

In the mean time here are some things to think about:

-getting a job in Vancouver, B.C 2010
-December 21st, 2012, the end of the Mayan long count calendar and the official "End of the World" for people who believe in that sorta thing
-2013, The next Kumbh Mela Hindu festival in India. In 2001 70 million people attended making it the biggest gathering of humans ever.
-My high school 10th, in November 2008. Place and my attendance are uncertain
-Radiohead, August, 2008 White River amphitheater.
-World's craziest sunburn: Ben Lidgus Sihanoukville, Cambodia. Malaria meds really do make you more photosensitive.
-Only person in Cambodia without massive diarrhea: Ben Lidgus, the guy with Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Could all these things be a coincidence, or is the anticipation of the return of Quetzalcoatl in 2012 really causing unintended karmic disturbances. Hard to say. I fall into the "The World is Just as Fucked/Amazing as its Ever Been; The End Times Are Not Near" Camp but other people think different.

In the mean, mean time send mexican food, bandwidth to upload pics and watch all the wonderful youtubes you folks keep sending me, gossip, chocolate, pics of my nephews and Huck, and the laws regaurding setting up a street food stand in Seattle.

My life is changing I think/hope. Email me about yours.

Microphone check, 1, 2, 06!

Holiday in Cambodia!

2008-04-07T03:23:00.000-07:00

I've had several friends go to India and they tell stories about it involving one or more of the following statements:

-It was amazing!
-It was the hardest thing I have ever done!
-I shit water for 99 days!
-Constant poverty is draining!
-The people were so friendly!
-Don't expect anything to happen easily!
-It changed my life!
-I got ripped off!
-I didn't die in the Tsunami!

It reminds me of my Jr. High report card. It would read something like "Social Studies, Ms. Jovag, B+, see comments 1, 2, 8".

One could exchange "India" for "Cambodia" and "Tsunami" for "Monsoon", and "99 days" for "I accidentally barfed in some one's house after eating shitty food". It didn't look like some one's house. The walls were made of shade cloth so it looked like a fun place to hide while the digestive demons were exorcised. Well oops, sometimes the stomach parasite gets you and sometimes the stomach parasite gets.... um.... you AND the small barely clothed family that sells Pringles at the bus stop. Divine vengeance? Tragic comedy? Call for help from many directions? You decide.

Seriously though folks this place is crazy. I finally made it to Sihanoukville on the coast and swam in the ocean. I've been waiting 2.25 months for this moment. It's about 105 degrees today. The journey has taken me through Phnom Penh, and Angkor Wat and innumerable shit holes filled with trash, people pooping in public, heroin dealers and incredibly pushy 13 yo girl mango hawkers (You no buy mango I cry!!). The lack of infrastructure and disregard with which native Khmer treat their surroundings seems appalling until you realize that Cambodia was in the Stone age until 1979 due to the insanely, manically, cruel world vision of Brother Number One, Pol Pot.

Pol Pot performed his mass murders of doctors, lawyers, journalists, people with glasses, people who knew foreigners at a place called the Killing Fields and visiting them is a trip. You can pick your poison there; towers of skulls with massive bludgeon wounds to the right temple, trees where they hung speakers to drown out the screams, or the bones and clothes that continue to seep out of the excavated mass graves when it rains. Many people cry, my friend Andre almost vomited. I felt the need for a prayer of compassion and a sense of extreme gratitude come over me as I realized that up until know my life has been devoid of evil on a grand scale. But it's more than avoiding then pain of skull fracture or the pain that goes along with brainwashing and inflicting a mortal skull fracture. The gratitude also comes from not living in a society that has to recover from Pol Pot's economic torture. I have the money to travel the free time to worry about self actualization, the option to attend higher education, and a reasonably cosmopolitan understanding of the world's culture and politics. Who knows, maybe I'll even blow a Cambodian's years savings on 4 days of diving lessons on a boat. It's rare that a native Cambodian has any of these opportunities. Pol Pot's vision was a Khmer empire made from %50 farmers and %50 military personnel. His 4 year effort to accomplish this left Cambodia in economic ruin. Knowing this, one has a new respect for the lack of paved roads, business acumen, and arithmetic ignorance. Every school, business, food stand or government job has been built from the ground up since Pol Pot's fall in 1979.

Imagine a life with no mentors, no infrastructure and no examples about how to lead a fulfilling life because anyone with that knowledge was either killed, brainwashed, sent to work in a rice field, starved to death or all of these simultaneously. The result is a kind of communo-capitalism based on either NGO's, foreign investment ("Dude! we could totally make a killing, just making food that doesn't taste like shit and charging an extra 50 cents. Let's never leave this place!), or hustling. Native Cambodian enterprise seems to all be a hustle from the 5 year olds that cry when you don't buy a book, to the taxi/heroin dealers, backpack thieves to the police fine/bribes to the "oops! I don't know how I charged you for 5 extra beers thanks for telling me that" guest house owner. It's easy to hate it or get frustrated. After learning more about how their entire culture was erased from 1975-79, it's easy to turn frustration into respect that these beautiful caring people have made it this far while still battling severe inflation and government corruption.

I will never excuse the crappy food though. I mean jeez, put a frickin' chili in the fried rice.

Forgive me father.

2008-03-27T21:17:00.000-07:00

It has been a long time since my last blog. As a result the Lord has cursed my travel partners with a case of the 'soda fountain ass' and the wonderful people of southern Lao with the most dramatic rainstorm and lightening I have ever witnessed. It became evident to me how one living in the age of pissed off gods that war amongst one another might attribute the transmission of atmospheric static electricity from Cumulonimbus to Cumulonimbus and the ensuing emission of sonic radiation as the result of divine vengeance. Seriously sports fans, the mid-west don't got shit on this shit. I would humbly invite one of my friends with a DSL connection to see if they could find the amount of rainfall between March 26th and March 28th on the island of Don Det in the very southern tip of Laos*. I myself counted seven hours of the most intense rainfall I've ever seen, 5 Laotian guest house owners bailing water out of boats,2 washed away gardens and innumerable stoned travelers standing on the porch of their bungalows saying "Duuuuuude, check that lightening shit".

I spent 6 nights in said bungalows and on said island swimming in the counter intuitively pristinely gorgeous Mekong river, feeding monkeys berries, drinking the warmest Beerlao one could imagine and lying in hammocks. Not bad for one week and some overtime. It can get old though. Good thing I met Ryan with whom I did a fare amount of fun organizing.

Turns out that when you have electricity on an island from 6pm to 10pm, you get many Farang walking their drunk and extremely attractive asses to the small beach at the corner of Don Det and thus beginning the nightly ritual of guitar playing, seeing whose ipod speakers are more bumpin', playing the "Are You Drunk Enough to Kiss Me?" game, and then leaving their bottles, cups, cigarette butts and Beerlao caps all over the beach. I met Ryan while cleaning the beach and reciting Snoop and Dre prose in the 95 degree heat at 10am. Reminds me of good times spent with Meishan Bettendorf in the Nevada desert.

We eventually made a sign saying "Leave No Trace" out of abandoned butts, laboriously acquired glue, and other scavenged materials. We thought the message was clever. Turns out the French, Aussies, Israelis, and English surveyed didn't understand what it meant. They did seem to understand the garbage can next to it though, eventually.

Effective or not it was an incredible bonding experience. At one point I bought him a beer and he offered to pay me back monetarily. I told him that instead he owed me a shot of whiskey and a chest bump. Upon redeeming the debt it became clear that outweighing someone by a ratio of 4:3 and engaging in a midair collision makes for a perfect lesson in painful physics. i was the teacher he was the student.

Towards the end of our stay on the island we decided to throw a pig roast with our new friends. The venue would be the restaurant adjacent to his guest house simply titled "Mama's guest house and restaurant" Inherent in that title is that , yes it is owned by Mama, but also that Papa is pretty much a silent partner in charge of cooking, construction and custodial duties. Ryan and I negotiated food for 30 including one pig, one duck, salad, and mashed taters for 700,000 Kip (1 USD = 8930 KIP at press time) and we would charge folks 30,000 Kip (a pricey Don Det meal) for the extravaganza.

We had heard that some people had done this previously and they had lost money mostly due to poor management of Beerlao sales. Neither Ryan nor I was in a position to lose money so we had a brief meeting of the minds with Mama. What follows is nothing short of an amazing insight into the way Laotians view the hospitality arts. During the previous pig roast the travelers lost money because Beerlao money was collected at the end of the evening, after the tipsy Farang had left due to the 10pm curfew/electricity shut off. Ryan and I acted a scene in which we suggested an alternative economic model.

Ryan enters, stage left holding a plastic chair, places plastic chair near beer cooler and reclines.

Ryan: "Me Mama. Me sit here. Beerlao! 10,000 Kip
(Mimes rapid Beerlao distribution)

Ryan: "Beerlao 10,000 Kip! You take! You take! Me Mama"

(Enter Ben, stage right with money clearly in hand)

Ben: "Beerlao! Beerlao! Beerlao! I have give you 10,000 Kip!"

(Camera pans to Mama who is clapping, laughing and smiling. Camera pans then to Papa and "Daughter1" and "Daughter2" who are all doing the same)

Mama: "OK ! OK! 10,000 Kip Beerlao no problem!"

Papa: "Heyyyyyyy! Ok!"

(Mama and Papa both go to center stage to hug Ben and Ryan)

end scene.

Having worked in the restaurant industry for many years the idea of charging for alcoholic beverages immeadiately upon consumption without a credit card given as collateral seems natural. I know this and I have never owned a restaurant. I merely frequent them. This was a happy moment for me to share this knowledge.

My travel partners Andre, Lionel and I left the beautiful island of Don Det 2 days after the feast during the unseasonably early monsoon. All three of us were amazed that the road from Laos to Cambodia, told to us by many to be the shittiest in all of Asia, was not washed out but was in fact fine. We are here and safe. Don't try to walk anywhere between 10am and 5pm unless you want to die from the sun. Today I took a 2 hour nap spread eagle naked on my bed with something that could have turned into heat stroke. Tomorrow the killing fields.

Have a nice day.

*When your Internet connection is as slow as it is here, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, its hard to tell if this total rainfall in inches just isn't recorded in this region on any given day or if I just lack the speed and patience to give the search what it takes. I couldn't get Weather.com to recognize "Laos" or the more correct "Lao". If I was to hazard a guess, I would say 15 inches in 7hrs, but who knows where the nearest weather recording station is in relation to an island that has electricity and the ensuing clouds of Light Bulb Gnats from 6pm to 10 pm nightly. Give it a go for the Lidge, will ya?

Even in the dry season...

2008-03-20T04:40:00.000-07:00

waterfalls are great. Pakse, Laos is on the Bolaven Plateau. In two days of light and meandering scootering one can view 6, 5 of which are swimmable. At this moment I have no diarrhea nor amoebic dysentery but I will keep my fingers crossed.

The trip began as a discussion between my current travel partners Lionel and Andre. Lionel is Swiss-French and spent 26 days meditating in a temple in Chiang Mai and Andre works for Yosemite maintaining trails. Imagine Buphalo except that he looks like the singer from House of Pain and played high school baseball. Both are crazy good folks that I wish to put in my pocket and take home with me.

Much to my chagrin, super fun amazing folks traveling together and having a great time tend to accrue other folks, some obviously awesome and some whose internal awesomeness needs some coaxing. In short we left for out trek with 10 (ten!) folks. That makes me feel like I'm on the playa playing the "Are you ready to go? No, I'm waiting for person A with item B" game.

However, even if I had to corral 1,000 ADHD, grease covered feral cats it would be well worth the effort. Waterfalls are the new waterfalls and swimming in them is the new swimming in them. For serious dudes, no big jumps just caves that look like they at one time housed Bilbo and Frodo's aquatic cousins (go ahead, say it out loud right now "Aquahobbits" It feels good dudn't it?), beautiful valleys, and one side ways 8 worth of shades of green.

Tomorrow it is off to the 4,000 islands. Maybe I will catch the full moon party. I really don't know what I'll find there. As per usezh I have plenty of pictures to post but these SE Asian computers either lack a USB port or are incredibly slow. Included in that set will be my new jarhead haircut and pictures of the barber trimming my back hair, lots of swimming and tom foolery.

I am a man of my word.

2008-03-14T00:12:00.000-07:00

Jumping off of things into water has always been a great pleasure of mine and in Laos it is gaining a foothold in me in this area like a case of septic Meningitis. As you can see, the water here is the color toothpaste and it is just as refreshing. At this, the Kuang Si waterfall there are cascading pools that are deep enough to jump in from 15 or so feet, a rope swing, and if you hike up far enough a tree that crops out over an overhang. That one is a doozy. A travel friend has a picture of that one in which a Lao dude and I are standing, him laughing at my trepidation and shaking the slippery trunk I trying to stop the shaking in my calves long enough to get stable and make the leap. I hope to have that one soon for y'all.

The trip to the waterfall is about 45 minutes and one can rent a Tuk-Tuk for the day to make it. All the fabulous jumping here has made me want to write a book called "Things I Have Jumped Off Of Into The Water, a Travel Memoir." This urge is only supported by my next entry which will concern the souless/soulful city of Vang Vieng, Laos. Krazy pics soon too.

If you get this post via email let me know.

2008-03-07T23:33:00.000-08:00

I might have to fix my email updates.

Let me know if you've tried to set this up and it didn't work.

Teaching pictures

2008-03-07T22:58:00.000-08:00

I gave my students a bunch of words cut out on little pieces of paper and had them arrange them into sentences. My two favorite were "The book is on the tree" and the despondent "My scooter is in the lake". The like this game and Bingo best.

My teaching gig is up and I am on to the gorgeous Luang Prabang , Laos. The fun way to get there is on the two day slow boat. It makes you feel like you know half the town upon arrival. I picked up some Aussies and some Californians and now we move like a hoard gobbling up all the beerlao in our path. I believe I will rest from this endeavor now as I am finally out of all the Tylenol I got from my dentist. Beerlao is kinda like hangover in a bottle. It's not half as bad as the sludgewaste know as Beer Chang (its Thai for "Beer Elephant"). I don't know if its a myth or not but I've heard several places that it contains formaldehyde. I can't escape the thought that the Leprechaun/bar owner from Good Morning Vietnam is Beer Chang's patron saint. I have a reel that runs through my head of Robin Williams in spitting out the stuff and the little man remarks with a wee lilt in his Vietnamese accent that it contains "Jus' a tush of formahdeehide for fwaivor"

Tomorrow I am going to jump in a waterfall.

My rock knows no bounds.

2008-02-28T20:21:00.000-08:00

Wednesday was a slow day. I mailed some mail, ate too much food, and internetted some Internets. You know, the uszhe. I had just cracked a Big Beer Chang to celebrate the lack of dental antibiotics in my system when a man whose hair looks like this said something about a concert. I had two more Big Beer Changs stuffed in my bag faster than you can say "On my tab please, Ning" and was out the door.

I'm not so much "down" with the "scene" as the kids say in Chiang Rai say but Heyzeus Kristo how could I have missed such an awesome gear up and spectacle? I walked about 20 minutes to the show and in that time traffic went in one direction, towards the searchlights. Chiang Rai is not a big town. So when M-150, Thailand's biggest energy drink throws a huge show with like 5 pop acts, 10-20 dancers in Vegas show girls outfits, a gigantic stage and about 4,000 attendees it makes you wonder if I still have my finger on the pulse of Thailand's youth.

What I do know is that this drunk farang was every body's best friend. You can sorta see in the picture that everyone is sitting. Note the one guys standing in the upper right. BORING! I quickly maneuvered my way up to the front where there was about 75 folks dancing. These were my peeps. Most people wanted my picture. Occasionally an uber drunk Thai dude would become aggressively insistent that he boost me up on stage. This this I could only feign ignorance and respond with Dow-hoo (tofu), Moo (pork), or Sorng kai (two eggs). I don't think he could hear me.

Apparently the Thais assumed my price for a picture was a shot of Sang Som, Thai Rum that people always seem to call Whiskey. I first met Mr. Som in Chiang Mai, where some fabulous new friends of mine bought a bottle. A fine move. Many of my new dancing friends had the same wisdom and would share a bit with me. The exchange would invariably go down like this: they want to dance and yell "woo" with me, they want my picture, they pour my a small swig of Sang Som, I down it instantly, they turn around intending to fill my class with coke or soda water, only to find it empty, everyone cheers.

It took me a bit to grasp the fundamental differences between drinking here and drinking liquor at home. First my body mass falls into a 3:2 ratio to most Thais but second and more importantly Seattle can be like attending a master's level course in hard alcohol, or what I have been calling in my head for two days "Whiskey school". I have graduated. These Thai folks haven't. I have been to my absolute limit and have come to appreciate things like throat burn, stomach fire, making a wonderful fool out of myself, and performing linear cognitive tasks that are way out of my skill level while under the influence. For a while this game of "give the white guy alcohol poisoning" was beginning to escalate, so I had to start giving pictures away for free.

The rest of the evening was a mish-mash of making meat on a stick runs for my new friends, smacking the top of the stage in appreciation of the acts, rallying cross cultural buffoonery and generally being the funny dude I and they wanted me to be. Great fun. Twice during the night a group would grab the attention of the MC and indicate that a whitey was in the audience and both times the MC came over to me and on the mike asked me questions in Thai which I had no idea how to answer. Before they gave up and went back to the show I got an "I Love you" from the MC and hilarious laughter from 4,000 seated Thais. In all the shows I've ever been in I don't think I've ever gotten a bigger laugh. The biggest fool to ever hit the big time, and all I gotta do is act naturally.

p.s. The price of this concert was 20 Baht with a free M-150 energy drink. In the stores they cost 10 Baht. Last time I checked the dollar was at 32 Baht.

Fruition Ch. 1

2008-02-23T23:19:00.000-08:00

I'm hesitant to write this post, without the picture that was taken of me and my class today. They're delicious kids. The place is called the Sakura project. Its a boarding school or hostel where kids from the poor, rural hill tribes around Thailand stay and then attend a nearby school. I teach in their lunch room. They bring me tea and water incessantly. It makes me feel like a big, rich, hairy Gaijin-san

My boss, Mr. Takashi started this boarding school 17 years ago. He's been living in Thailand for 20. It costs $500 a year to sponsor a child at the Sakura project and I suggest you try it. The place is ridiculously efficient. The children sleep on rolled up mats and hang their laundry in the sun.

These kids are great and they totally heart me but are incredibly shy. Cripplingly so at times. When I ask if vocabulary is "easy" or "hard" its not uncommon for me to get 2 out of 18 hands to go up to indicate "easy", none for "hard" and nary another when I add the third option "medium". Being the robot that I am my first assumption 16/18 of them intended the cryptic "no answer" option maybe from some sort of divide by 0 error or a typo in their machine code. The problem is actually the Thai face saving culture. Being wrong is a huge sin hence no one risks it.

Its easy to justify this tendency in myself while in my own classes. There can almost be a righteous "why should I have to be the one to say anything" that reader boards through the lizard brain when the teacher asks something obvious. However when there is a language barrier I have to restrain myself from thinking that these kids are dumb as paint. It takes an extra leap in empathy/understanding to not be judgmental of normal human fears and weaknesses when there isn't a common language.

I know it sounds like I'm bitching, far from it though. This discussion is more of a comment on my own goals. Today I asked a boy if he was finished with a project that he obviously was too shy to start, he got up and walked to the other side of the room and sat as far as he could from me. Its easy to get caught in the trap of asking one's self "Is this why I came here? to play Robin Williams circa Good Morning Vietnam, but actually torturing the boundaries of Thai kids?

It isn't like that all or even most of the time though. Most kids are quiet but very studious. They laugh at me especially when I trip or kick over the guitar. They like it when I accidentally wipe marker from the white board on my face. This gives rise to one of my favorite sight gags of all time in which I feign ignorance of the big black streak on my face and wipe in the wrong area thereby smearing more ink. "No! No! No! Teacher Ben No!"

Today I spent about 2 hours after class singing songs and playing guitar with the boys and my assistant "dToh". I know! Sorta my dream right? He told me he likes "country music" which here means Simon and Garfunkel, America, Kansas, John Denver , and the Beatles. I'll call it Travis Beck music. On Tuesday (the day after I get my second wisdom tooth pulled) I'm gonna bring dToh my Ipod. Suck on some Mother Fuckin' Guns n' Roses dude.

I've been hanging out with this dude Bill who has been showing me the ropes and helping me meet folks who can help me on my quest. I real nice guy but being around him reminds me how blessed I am to know all the incredible people I know at home. If you're reading this I have a gigantic boner for you, for reals.

I ended up getting all teary eyed on the back of Bill's scooter tonight. He brought us to a place where I ended up singing The Pixies and The White Stripes to a bunch of Thai kids (twice in one day? this day was MADE of mango sticky rice). The funny thing is I have certain songs which seem to accompany times of personal growth, love, humility or respect for the power of life's journey. One of the biggies is "Where is my Mind" by the Pixies. I always get a vision of Frank Black bobbing up and down while swimming in the Carribean in total awe of the beauty all around him. That vision was there for me tonight. I was there with Mr. Black. I mean geez you kids are great.

That was the second time I got misty today. The first was when I was explaining my travel situation to my students. When I got to the part about leaving everyone and everything I care about to try something new that I didn't know would work or not I couldn't fight it back. I don't know who saw, but I hope they all did as I later attempted to leverage my emotional release against a guarantee on their part to try to speak out in class more and not worry about being wrong so much. I hope they saw the subtlety of the implicit argument I was making. I'd hate to waste a dramatic moment like that. Because just like the Sioux with the buffalo NOTHING is wasted with the Lidge.

A shift in the balance of the Force

2008-02-20T00:35:00.000-08:00

Normally my dreams are pretty disappointing and scary. They usually involve waking up before coitus, accidently killing something, having to go back to high school to complete a class and then not making the basketball team or being chased by someone/something and not being able to run/scream/breathe.

And then there is the Star Wars dreams. LucasFilms LTD should hire my subconscious and union writing wages plus %50. I have destroyed the death star soooo many times I'm over it. In the most recent I was flying an X-wing and needed to make an emergency landing on earth during a battle. The re-entry was surprisingly realistic (I think). My ship was engulfed in flames and everything was really loud. You know, like the movies.

Then my perspective shifted. I was now walking down the street in Seattle south of downtown on I-5 near the Senaca St. exit, and multiple X-wings and those ships from The Empire Strikes Back that are responsible for tripping up Imperial Land Walkers start crashing into building, freeway support columns and the Amazon building. They melted everything they touched as they were white hot from atmospheric entry. In the background it becomes apparent that there is some company with blue billboards everywhere. They are on hills and buildings with the same coverage that one sees walking through the most dense parts of San Fransisco. All the billboards have a different slogan on them like "15 minutes can save you 15 minutes or more" or "A deliscious way to live".

The next day I wake up, in the dream, and overnight all the jokes and slogans on the billboards have changed to reference the X-wing destruction all over the city. Stuff like "We don't insure X-wings, we insure people" or "I guess, Luke shouldn't have left the Degoba System early". What I thought was the funny part came next when I called Peter Brown over and said "Dude! Some advertising guy is on the ball! Where other people see "Space disaster" or "Major philosophical paradigm shifting event" he sees "Opportunity to increase market share amoung 18 to 35 year olds". Thast fucker saw X-wings coming down and got on the fucking phone!". I imagined this ad guy saying "I don't care if Clear Channel's New York offices are closed Get me Berlin! I don't care if his building is on fire! I need to change my ad copy NOW!"

Dream version Peter got this all with my hands around his neck, screaming in his face.

700 year stadium and the 2.5 seconds that will make you a man

2008-02-17T00:05:00.000-08:00

The heaven that's created for me will most likely include a waterfall with a deep landing pool and dolphins that serve you Hofbrau, dark chocolate, and cleavage. In the mean time I make do. Mike, my friend who shares my love of bodies of water and leaping into them but not my fear of swimming more than 70ft, has told me repeatedly of his joyful day traveling where he found an olympic sized swimming pool with a diving platform just outside of Chiang Mai. At that moment a commitment to go there someday was etched into my DNA.

The home of the pool, 700 year Stadium, truly earns it's moniker. Its huge. Its made of cement, and if you believe in the long term viability of Nation States it will most likely have an exploitive revenue stream based on taxation of subsistence farmers capable of maintaining it for as long as it claims. Why exploitive? The place is empty all the time. It's obviously for the glory of Thai Kingdom and not the health, wellfare and recreation of the Thai people. Let's look at the name "700 year stadium". If one's mind had not already been drawn a comparison to Hitler's claim that the 3rd Reich would last for 1000 years the fact that I saw:

a) 2 attack helicopters
b) 10 Thai soldiers
c) 8 assualt rifles

there should. Seriously. The two choppers took off while I was swimming laps. Never before has the world seen such a juxtaposition of weaponry and forseen mirth since Washington D.C. I don't envision Burmese hordes overrunning this place anytime soon. Not unless this guy has anything to say about it.

On the day in question I rented a scooter to drop some teaching resumes and then reward myself with a trip outside the city to get to Mike's fabled diving platform. I had been cranky most of the day, as job hunting in a city you know and with a language you speak can be. This one however has the added difficulties of not being able to say more than "Hello", "Thank You", "One", "Two", "Three", and "Three slaps across the face" in the native tongue, left side of the road driving, mosquitoes and back sweat. To say that I was excited to take a plunge would be an understatement.

Unfortunately the top two thirds of the platform were closed. A couple of laps and unsatisfying 10ft drops and I thought I should begin my half hour drying ritual (oops! no towel) and be off. Then along came some of these. I heart pool kids. They're so much fun and I'm way bigger than most of them. In the States I've been known to taunt them into diving contests, get in splash fights, advise them in queue ettiquette ("No cuts, no butts, no coconuts"), and say "One, two, three, Not It!" to tap into the I-want-to-play-tag-but-not-be-the-center-of-attention part of their prefrontal cortex.

The kids I had met climbed around the fence that had stopped me from getting to the top platform. They only ever made it half way up though. Metal had stopped me, but fear had stopped them and because of this I knew the day would be mine. I will never be outdone by pool kids. Never. When I heard the first slightly louder than usual splash I awoke from my near slumber with the voice of George Bush Sr in my head in the days just after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. "This will not stand!" echoed through the cavarn that is my empty skull. I formed an alliance with the lead pool kid and with him as my proxy force leading the way we made quick work of the barrier.

Excitement and fear can be one hell of drug. 10m is a large drop mind you, only made to look larger by the fact that the surface of the water was so flat that I couldn't tell where it was. I could only see the bottom of the pool which added the illiusion of another 5m in fall length. Damn. It makes sense why diving contests use small jets of water that agitate the surface just enough tomake it visible. Otherwise divers would pee themselves. I know this for a fact because that's what I did, just a little.

Books are can be written, empires can rise and fall, and one could read all the Star Wars Extended Universe novels there are out there in the 2.5 seconds it takes to fall 10m. Time stops. People go out to the lobby and smoke. Brain activity is put on standby. BAM! Rashes on the bottom of the feet and underarms form. Air leaves lungs. The swim to the top takes longer than you thinkit should. At the surface the only thing you have left is glory. Applauding pool kids equals glory. Not the fading kind that comes with empirial conquest or superbowls but the kind that lasts forever and comes with the knowledge that "I have more armpit hair than you do and always will".

It's moments like these where I remember that it's the little mischief in life that counts.

The Nightmare before Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

2008-02-16T22:58:00.000-08:00

Last night I had three dreams that were continuations of one another. A rare feet. These we're concerning my life in High School. I had gotten the lead in a production of Charlie and the Chocolate factory as Mr. Wonka. I said to my chief supporting actor and acting coach Kevin Joyce that "Wonka is a role I was born to play", a sentence that I have uttered in real life, but only about Miss Hannigan from Little Orphan Annie. Apparently I was born for more than one thing. Fascinating.

I was struck by the production value of this perfomance. The costumes were 10' monstrosities much like the ones worn by Will Ferrell's character from Blades of Glory when he is forced to join the Ice Capades. Each one had an internal microphone, animatronic facial gestures, and mechanisms to move the arms not unlike the walking forklifts in the Alien movies. I was impressed and had no idea how the dircetor expected us to learn the lines and go up in three days. Day one we were allowed to use our scripts. Day two we were off book. Day three dress rehearsal. Day four, perform.

Kevin was irritated with me by day two and had taken to reciting my missed lines for me. This didn't help and was, infact irratating. His ire was especially apparent when we rehearsed a scene where Wonka flies into the theater in a lifesize sleigh with presents for the audience and 8 reindeer all manuevered by rigging and flywheel. I felt like Mary Martin, Sandy Duncan and Cathy Rigby all wrapped up together with the stage version of Falcor from the Never Ending Story. This scene was ambitious enough, until I learned that I was to exit the sleigh via rainbow. An actual rainbow mind you, that emitted a twinkle sound as I slid down. Martians circa 2004 will remember the twinkle that was emitted by the infamous Crystal Pony Room. Some say this room was imaginary, I say it was real. I saw it with mine own eyes. *cough* I was completely unprepared to rehearse this scene and Kevin had his and my lines down pat.

By the third dream I decided to get off my ass and get help with my lines. I found someone whose office was midspan on the 520 bridge. I was surpised how much office/light industrial square footage was out there. I wonder how much he paid. On one hand its right on the water, on the other its very noisy and there's no parking. He didn't care so much about my lines as he did about my choice for vocal characterization of Santa/Wonka. He had me say "HO, HO, HO! Merry Christmas" over and over. He thought my choice "tinny". He recommended I try something more "boomy".

The last thing I remember was that the orchestra was doing their dress rehearsal in the theatre. Their runthrough was the song "Hoedown". The following is what wikipedia has to say about the song:

"
The most famous hoedown in classical music is the section entitled Hoedown from the Rodeo ballet by Aaron Copland (1942)... Hoedown became even more famous through television advertisements by America's Beef Producers with the slogan "Beef, It's What's for Dinner".
"

They orcestra was so tight. I applauded and got nervous. I only have one more night to work on my lines. I'll let you guys know if there is a conclusion/how is goes.

test

2008-02-13T23:53:00.001-08:00

test

Pai pics

2008-02-11T19:32:00.000-08:00

The city of Pai is located in a big valley. Its beautiful. Please note above: Wolrd's most perfectest precarious foot path, and World's most perfectest tree house hotel. Leo has this to say about it, which could be true, please ask him and get back to me.

"
Pai! I was there indeed! Rock slide waterfall! Authentic Tribal Opium burnout losers!
Rythm and Blues Thai cover band! Pictures of everyones asses!
And exclamation points as far as the eye could see!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"

There's a band name in there somewhere. You find it.

I'll be asleep by 4pm

2008-02-09T21:18:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I rented my new favorite thing, the scooter, and scooted the 4 or so hours to Pai. Friggin' gorge dudes. My firend Mike (you can read his blog in my links) said something like "On the ride to Pai I would turn a corner and be like BAM! That 's the most beautiful valley I've ever seen." If I could verify this statement(s) I would. Unfortunately I only had one BAM! valley. Most of my trip was in pitch dark due to an extremely late start. You see, the night before I had met some local expat kids and gone on a birthday pub crawl in which the birthday girl set up a nine bar "golf course" in which we were supposed to drink a drink of her choosing in a "par" amount of sips.* That night was crazy. ++PLEASE LISTEN CLOSELY BEN EXWORTHY++. At one of the bars a Thai prostitute started slapping me in the face and I encouraged her to do so as hard as she could. She did. I fell. Who wins? You guessed it. Lidge.

OH YEAH YEAH YEAH! I forgot. So late start on the way to Pai. I did get to see this while it was still light out:

http://www.netsalvo.com/touristinparadise/img4056.jpg

I would take my own pictures had I not forgotten to bring my camera battery charger. Read the guy's blog who took that picture. You can pretend he's me and that you're you. And that we like to do "Anime cos-play" together. It's like being a furry, but being a cartoon instead. Mathew Bollen told me he and Buphalo do this when nobody is looking. His blog:

http://touristinparadise.blogspot.com/

So, Lidge, why Pai? - Turns out there is a reggae festival there. There is nothing quite like people who speak tonal languages mimicking the deep, uber-chillness of Jamaican singing. Call me crazy, but I hear birds.
So, Lidge, reggae festival? Why? - Yeah, I know. I wouldn't get within 20 digeridoo lengths of one of those things in the states. But young student say "Master why scoot in pitch black to see a Thai reggae festival?" and Master say "I think you just answered you own question."

Net result: I camped there and froze my nards off. I couldn't sleep until the sun came up. It was fun. Thais in Pai drive cool scooters and are way hip. I saw a good ska band. Reggae is funny. I talked to a few folks. Good times.

I just read the preceding paragraph in my head and it was done by Jordan's voice.

Today I will visit the HQ of couchsurfing.com. It's a social networking site for people who travel and like to stay at other people's houses for free. It is helping me fuel my social addiction out here.

There you go. 5 shoutouts in this entry. I'm like Perez Hilton**

*What are we, 20? who has that kind of liver to drink nine types of booze in a night, all fruity drinks mind you, and not end up puking, hungover or both. Oh wait, never mind, this guy
http://www.cafepress.com/breadwig.10777417

**6

Someone stole one of my shoes

2008-02-07T04:07:00.000-08:00

The first photo is of me and my leggies, with pants in Rental Bike Aloft Attack Mode (R'Baam!). Miss Vithoulkas says I look like "A German tourist at Club Med circa 1989" I agree. She's wise. I'm wearing my Zuper-Fantastisch black hott Schue und meine kleines Socken. Sehr Schoen, Ja?

The next pic is my home orphaned shoe outside the hostel in Bangkok, where it is customary to leave them, lest ye invite Nagas, Demons, bad luck, disrespect for your host(s), or unsitely dog feces into the building. It misses it's friend. I offered to take the entire staff out for dinner if they find it and keep it until I return, someday. Estimated cost 20 people x $1 per person = $20, a reasonable ransom in my mind for the return of bitchin' kicks.

Which brings me to food. Delicious, and on a stick. nuf said. It's greasy and doesn't make you feel gross andyou always want more. You have two choices: Sit down, get a bowl or plate, walk around, graze, pay 30 cents for a few sticks of heaven, repeat. My personal faves: Som Tam-diced papaya in spicy fish sauce, and Flat Meat On A Stick - chicken? pork? hard to say.

I have a new love.

2008-02-07T03:45:00.001-08:00

Tuk-tuks! You're a motorcycle! You're a taxi! You're smelly! You're short on headroom! Oh curses, I don't care! I love you too much to hide it anymore. Despite all your flaws. Mark my words I'm gonna drive my own Tuk-tuk someday. Mine plays Queen, loudly.

p.s. I would love to be able to post pics in the middle of my posts instead of all clumped at the top. If someone wants to send me that advice, that'd be swell.

Not dead, in fact well

2008-01-30T17:27:00.000-08:00

Gracious thanks to my wonderful friends and family. My send off was great and just what I needed. It's a shame that it takes major events for gratitude and appreciation to get vocalized between folks. I only hope that I can keep up the wonderful example set up by the wonderful people I am lucky to know.

Anyone who has ever shared more than a thimble of PBR with me knows how hell bent I am on the beauty of improving one's internal world. I believe that learning more, feeling more, expressing more and being more happy loving and inspired is a rad goal in life. I see the people I know transforming in subtle and grand ways around me all the time. In this way I am inspired especially by my Mom, Sisters, and Dad, Jole and Benni, Bevin, Morgan, Huck, Laura, Carey, Betsy, Mike, Azure, and Autsy.

A particularly large shout out to Bevin and Morgan. Can't say enough good things about those kids but I'll try:

-1.5 years free lodging
-awesome food
-they let me paint their house, thereby making me feel useful
-Huck/Bus access
-Good folks

They are so choice. If you have the means, i highly recommend picking a pair up.

Oh yeah, Bangkok is cool. I'm meeting up with the two folks I know with the most egregious last names besides my own: Julie Vithoulkas and Stuart Updegrave.

Soon you will be able to sign up for email notifications for when I update and I'll get off my ass and link to my friends' blogs too.

I haven't seen a cloud in two weeks

2007-12-01T22:09:00.000-08:00

I found the below post fragment in my Draft folder. I thought it was interesting because of the analogy of abundant wonderfulness and my over exuberant use of astrices. It's about my fall 2007 trip through the west.

begin.

No, not because I've been a recluse or a shut in, but because the Lord chose to smile* on Arizona, Nevada and California. He** used the same raw materials to make the following scenes that He used to make Marilyn Monroe, dolphins, and deep-dish gluten-free pizza.

*Maybe a devious smile. A park ranger told me that Yosemite National Park has received %46 of the average yearly rainfall to date. While the gray monoliths sparkle like Zeus' shoeshine under a cloudless sky, the flowers, deer, and fire danger signs are all going on strike for their own reasons.

**All references to Divine Gender should be taken as in line with tradition and not an endorsement of institutionalized western patriarchy