Saturday, December 31, 2011

It's OK I have recovered from one coma and about to fall into another...

First of all, Feliz Año Nuevo, Aith-bhliain Fe Nhaise Dhuit, Hauoli Makahiki Hou! I have somehow managed to survive Christmas without the peeps I love, the sweet swell and the scorpion bite and Chico's. I'm not sure about tonight but in the MZ tradition, tuanos! I should be making siesta right now but I am all bound up with notes, words and thoughts. It was starting to look like those eight journals I packed away {a gap of time between entries that look like some of the smiles here} I figured I'd just prop the leg up and have a cocktail so it's fresh mango, tonic and 18 yo rum for me and a few thoughts and issues for you:

  • Ticos celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve so it turns into a 48 hour Feliz hora and Chico's was disco balled and rolling the whole time. They did close for a few hours so everyone could go home and open their stockings or drop their knickers. The cabinasgansta's decided to have the day on the hill so everyone brought something, there was a pot luck, there was a pot luck and there was Poon juice. So nice having a 100mt walk home. Just can't figure out why it took as long as it did. It is interesting how people here, both extranejos and Tico's want to make sure that you are celebrating the day. Don't worry we did. Actually got two big Christmas presents, that 18 yo Flor de Cano Black Label and the scorpion bite on Christmas Eve. A swell time indeed...
  • Four days later my right foot and cankle are still sore and nasty looking. So now it's two snakes and two scorpions I've seen on the road at night. Unfortunately I saw one too late. It was just a collision of two shits in the night and it tagged the inside of my unshod foot { I work more on getting rid of my gringo feet than learning Spanish but that must be the vanity thing}. Fortunately for my Buddhist self I didn't kill it but after a week of this I think I would. Tico's tell you that you soak the bitten part in a strong mix of vinegar and water it reduces the swelling and the eventual itch. I always love shit that gives you two forms of discomfort, the pain and the itch. So now it's antibiotics but that probably is a good thing after a night in San Jose regardless of the scorpion.
  • Montezuma is jammed now with as many Ticos as there are Eurocanagringos. They camp on the beach come into town at night. The start of summer and the holidays are a great time to make party. The boats from Jaco make the beach look like Normandy. Not a room or space anywhere and there and it's like Portsmouth in the summer, you hate the crowds but love the money it brings. I can handle another summer of it in Portsmouth and I an handle it here until after the 6th of January because the government opens up again so everyone goes back to work.
  • The puppets are here! AJ brought all the stuff I needed to replace, get, have him find in the container for the things I had stolen, broken or forgot { the puppets} so even though the boys won't be playing tonight, I will be carrying Zoomey and two stick puppets this wonderful French lady makes. She was in film/theater as a mask maker and set designer in Europe and Hollywood and now sells in the organic market in the park on Saturday. She has made two masks for me that will be used in the Titire Teatro which will be in January. I'd like to do it while my daughter is here so she could lend a hand {I know cheap I'll use a pun whenever}. So after the first fire dancing session, after the Organico musica session with Mel Gibson thinking of playing some {shh don't tell anyone if it's true it will be a shit show} and a lot of picture taking cause he also brought the new lens, I will mask and puppet up and bring in the new year in the center of the universe tonight...
  • Surviving NYE will be a daunting task as it's NYE here until noon tomorrow. Chico's is open until early January 2nd and I'm taking titire to this party in Delicias, yes there is a place and this house party is supposed to be exotic. Two DJ's one who owns the casa and the other is my next door neighbor. Mr Black's casa is supposed to be something, a middle earth kind of place both inside and out so we shall see. It's a private party { that means no more than 75-100} and it's got Poon. HW is everywhere...
So I should be finishing making my siesta but I'm making my third mango and rum, fresh avocado with lots o' lime and fresh bread. I won't have to worry about the scorpions because if it's not light by the time I'm done in Delicias {love that expression} and walking up the road then I missed my turn and it's tomorrow night at Chico's. So for now kids;


New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions.
Mark Twain


Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously."
HST
just sayin, TmyO...

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

another road trip with the Rocketman...

I share the blaghosphere with a lot of peeps and like me on Facebook I don't spend a lot of time in other people's blaghs. One of the people out there is Charles Laquidara progenitor of Dwayne Ingalls Glasscock and an icon in Beantown radio land. The Big Mattress made me think about road trips back then, major ones and minor ones. 
We used to listen to WBCN 24 hours a day from back in the late 60's. I lived on Bay State Road across from a BU women's dorm with Bielitz and his crazy Ocelot who was the night stalker. Imagine living in a two bedroom apt across from a bunch of parading chicas {this was the 60's, they were not wearing a lot} with a 30 lb 3.5 ft long cat with black teeth. He was cool and would lay out on the fire escape in the sun with you and was a fabulous chica magnet:
    she: "is that a cat?"
    me: "yup"
    she: "can I come over and see you and your kitty?"
    me: "yup #80"
They loved to come over and hang out with us and I thanked the cat for years. You just couldn't be menstruating around the Ocelot cause it made him weird so we always had to either ask the question or just watch the fun.
BCN was king then and there was very little commercialism and a lot of music and controversial conversation from the on air peeps. You could work or go to school during the day in Boston and walk barefoot, smoke reefer and camp out on the Commons at night. Life was good except for the 800 lb gorilla in the room, the Vietnam War.
Rocketman and I decided to go to the People's Peace March to End the War in April of 1971. I had contacts through my work volunteering with RESIST, the national resistance to the war. I was involved with their planning and strategy group in Boston and got us a ride to Washington on a school bus that had all the seats removed so we could fit people in and the idea was to live in it while in Washington preparing for the march. 
I will admit to some cloudy moments over the three days involved around April 24, 1971 but I do remember that it was one of the most amazing times of my young life. Sure there were a lot of drugs and sex and rock'n'roll but there was enthusiasm and hope that this may have an impact if all these peeps do come to Washington. What I do remember:
  • the Rocketman was over the top for the three days and it was incredible being there with him. The school bus ride was a collection of all types and all ages an a joyful, spirited ride through the night
  • looking out at 500K people from the steps of the Capital Building with Country Joe and the Fish leading the Fish cheer, "give me an F"
  • believing we could make a difference
  • not getting arrested
  • the Krishna's feeding thousands Saffron rice with raisins out of trash cans full of rice. we were all "Hare Rama ring" that day
  • camping out on the Washington Monument with tens of thousands of others listening to a concert with Leslie West and Mountain and others
  • doing Peyote wandering around with some anti war wench while the Rocketman was spending the night in the bushes shagging some chica
  • Krishna's blah blah blah
The bus ride was a lot quieter on the ride back but the enthusiasm was still there because we still believed that the people determined the course of the country and not the White House wankers.
So I can read Chas's Big Mattress and remember how it was and who knows maybe he will read mine and just wonder??
As I'm on the Road this year without the Rocketman it has evoked memories of other road trips with him. April 22-25,1971 was one of the best. Just sayin. TmyO...

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Deep Descent

Deep Descent

D-Lux
D-Light
Thank you for the musica
tonight.
Just lissin...TmyO

Internet on the road...

It wasn't there the last time we were on this road. There were still IBM punch cards that we used to fuck with and mix up so that the holes didn't line up and the professor would get pissed. And of course one of us "who will ever use the computer?" kids would make sure that he or she dropped the box with every one's project cards. So my project is now part of yours and yours part of someone else. Who will ever want to deal with computer cards???
On the Road now it is as major a highway as the Pan Am highway only it connects everywhere. It is the main source of communication and news. There are no Bruins scores in the Tico Times although I do know what the Jaco Ladie's Garden Club is featuring as centerpieces for their gala.
The issue with the computer is not the cards, it's connection. I moved into cabina cinco and the Internet didn't work and it had been an issue before me. El Jeffe was tired of our collective whining so he had amigos come over and bury cables and put in routers and bingo all cabinas got connected. Yahoo!
Not perfect though cause every time we lose power which I've learned is frequently you have to disconnect and re-connect the power source and router connections. I have  nothing in my casa that flashes 12:00, 12:00 every time the power is interrupted so if there is no Internet it's out back I go. The hookup and works are on the back side of mi casa and I keep a chair there permanently to make the corrections or so someone else can do the same. That will give you a start when it's Howler monkey morning time and there is someone in the window by the bed.
There are three phones in MZ and 10 places to get WiFi so you can stay in touch with the world. Thank you Chico's for not having WiFi for public as that would be another reason to hang out and I would be googling liver transplants.
So when the Internet is your only source of news and commentary you wind up with:

  • Newt Gingrich takes his fourth ‘no-adultery pledge’
  • Saint Paul: Inside Ron Paul’s effort to convince Christian conservatives that he’s their man
  • Rick Perry pushes against 'political correctness' in new TV ad 
  • Fukushima Monkeys to Track Radiation
  • Clark Gable's grandson pleads guilty in laser-pointer case 
  • Lindsay Lohan says has learned from mistake
You get my point. You learn a lot of stuff when you have the Internet in your hand. A lot that you would never spend the time to read in a newspaper.
You begin to realize the further the distance between you and the motherland and the crazier it gets in an election cycle that as HST said, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." Lindsay tells Playboy that she is "accountable" for the choices in her life and then does a 10 page spread {it's what they call it not me}.
There is no TV in my life and hasn't been since 03.11.11 and the only radio has been in Spanish and it's always loud with some fast talking Tico yelling "MUSICA" or "JESUS".
OK I can go to Chico's Sunday evening and watch futbol with the locals but there is no news or current event source other than the Internet. So that's where you spend the non beach time here. If you want to download anything here it is like shitting a piece of coral, slow and painful. It seems I use that expression a lot these days. Rocky Horror took me three days before I was able to complete the download and I'm a week into the HD version of A Tribe called Quest. 
So that last great Road trip me and the Rocketman didn't have email or the Internet to keep in touch. Just the snail mail which 40 years later is no better here. The Internet, when I have it at least let's me continue to read the Portsmouth Police Log:

11:14 a.m. - A man told police he had a sexual encounter with a woman, left his phone at her apartment and she was using it to send “nasty texts to all his buddies.”


He's lucky he's not Newt Gingrich and he shoulda slept with Lindsay Lohan. Just sayin, TmyO...

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Cancer sucks rant...

It sucks. There are way more erudite ways of saying it but when it all comes down to gut wrenching moments, cancer sucks. Friday Sarah Fox died in Concord Hospital after a "valiant and courageous battle" with cancer.
Yes she did and so have many, many, way too many others just like PFD 173. Sarah was a FF/Paramedic on the Portsmouth Fire Department, a great clinician who was just the best person to have in the back of a rig when the shit is flying and peeps be dying. Like so many other people in Portsmouth I got to know who she was after she started her battle with fucking cancer. The world was gifted by another four years as she survived and return to the fire/ems service.
"PORTSMOUTH — Rest in peace, Sarah Fox.
One of the lights of the Portsmouth Fire Department was extinguished Friday, the news devastating to the community.Fox, a veteran of the Fire Department, lost her four-year battle with cancer at about 12:30 p.m. Friday at Concord Hospital. She was surrounded by family and friends. According to reports from those at the hospital, she died peacefully.Fox retired from the Fire Department on June 30, because her cancer had been deemed inoperable. She retreated to her Canterbury home to spend the time she had left with her husband, Matt, and her young children, daughter Patia and twins Anika and Alexander.The Fire Department and the community had rallied around Fox. Numerous fund-raisers, intended to help the family defray the exorbitant treatment costs, were held.Fox will be remembered as a loving wife and mother, and as a well-respected firefighter and paramedic. Also on the minds of mourning loved ones are her incredible courage and determination to live for as long as she could." In the end she died, it sucks, there is nothing good about it. Cancer sucks! If cancer writes my obituary let it say nothing about a valiant fight, cause I know I would be a pussy, rather let it say that it fucked with my life but I died while living. I have nothing good to say about it. It has been an efficient assassin in my parents families and it has snatched some good peeps that I knew.
The cynic in me says that if we put enough effort and intelligence and useful financing into it we could probably figure out a solution to most of the:
...200 different types of cancer that can affect the human body. A large percentage of people will be affected by some form of cancer or other in their lifetime. Some types of cancer are more serious than others. Some can be treated more easily than others, and the survival rate varies among types.There are two general categories of cancer. Carcinomas are cancers that develop on the surface linings of the organs. Sarcinomas are cancers that develop in the cells. Sarcinomas affect solid tissues such as muscle and bone. They can also develop in the blood vessels.The human body is made up of tiny cells. Each of these cells contains genes. Proteins inside these genes regulate the division and multiplication of the cells. If a gene becomes damaged, the cells can continually grow and divide without stopping. If too many of these damaged cells form together, they can grow into a tumor.Tumors can either be malignant or benign. Malignant tumors are the serious cancers. They can multiply and spread throughout the body's tissues and organs. Not all types of cancer form tumors. Cancers of the blood, such as leukemia, attack other areas of the body through the bloodstream. 
I told you it sucks!
So I rant out of frustration and out of the loss of another good person to cancer. And in April I will have the dermatologist check my tan ravaged skin, I will have my next to last Medicare checkup and have my PCP's finger up my ass and I don't smoke tobacco or eat meat or fuck without a condom so FUCK YOU CANCER?
I know it has fucked with your life and that there was at least one valiant person in battle with it  so I would ask: What are you doing about it?
Just rantin, TmyO...




Thursday, December 8, 2011

Random thoughts not Reggae Night...

Thursday night is reggae night in MZ and there are fire dancers in the street and peeps in the street and it's Tico Street. Every local dude has a fresh lid and Red Bull supports surfing here. Summer is here now {sounds so sweet} and every Thursday night, Reggae Night, gets better. Better is the best way I want to say it. Busier sounds negative I guess and better is always relative. In two weeks every college and university in North America goes on break for at least a month and oh yeah here comes NYE. So it will get rolling and every night will be someone or some group of chicas going away party. Five nights a week and Reggae Night is the queen of the prom. Disco ball goes on at 2130 and the resident DJ drops into a night of tunage.
I was content to hang tonight instead of paying $8 for taxi, the usual Chico's tab, avoiding two snakes and a scorpion. I have nine more Reggaenights in front of me so hanging with my good friend JJ, his girl and mine MJ, and internet all the fucking time now, WHOOT. Pura Vida sorta. So a night of random thoughts, not reggae:
  • For thirty years I read texts, papers, journals, studies and little anything else. I have been homeless and on the road for five weeks and I just finished my fifth book...
  • Its cool when you meet some specie on the road at night. Whether the head lamp picks up glowing eyes {never knew that there was a moth, a big moth, that has "eyes" that glow red} or the moonlight or quiet dark catches a sliver. So far all the species involved in encounters adopt the WTF!! approach. They slither or scatter to the side of the road and I walk brisquely down the road with a head on a swivel...
  • once again I know all the bartenders in town...
  • I am looking for driftwood body parts on the beaches to make a puppet for the NYE "Montey&Zumey presente Titere Playa, performance of Frankenpuppet. A mix of Frank, young Frank, Rocky Horror Frank and social commentary. Right now we have two natural stages on the beach behind Chico's and the ability of using the Guinal or glove puppets, shadow puppets and the Frankenpuppet that will be a lap puppet on the titeritero. Local icon, Don Casi Perfecto, is a sublime carpenter and shadow puppeteer. We are cross pollenating with fire dancers, musicians and probably a couple of local curb guys. So I could possibly debut on NYE as a titeritero and a curator. Then figure out how to get the Frankenpuppet across the line??
  • everyone has a back story here and there is always someone else to tell it to you...
  • 35 days and 150 to go...
  • I have had the quiet of my own company these weeks but now its time to get busy. A dude from P'town here in this town  for a month and AJ, Ginny, Libby, Casey and Justine coming in and I am calling Marie to double chica check...
  • Rocketman was all over the soul map today. Went to Santa Terasa and walked the playas and sweated the dusty road to Mal Pais. Wondered about our conversations then and tried to see him in the waves and the dust today...
  • Been here long enough that now I have the "is it bedbugs" thing. It's funny enough when you turn on the light at night that everything in the house dives for cover like they do on the road. Some of my kids were amazed I would wasn't to spend these nether years in a hot buggy ass place. Take malaria meds as I have mentioned and I  haven't seen a CR moskeetO yet.
  • Reading the credo and writings of mad men and frauds is almost as entertaining as watching porn...
  • A week from today my mother would be 93. Wow, could I handle another 27 years?
just sayin, TmyO...

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Acote After Dark

Acote After Dark

just sayin...

caer como piedra- to fall like a log...

So there will be no motorbike. Reason grabbed my brain shoulders and shook the idea onto the sand. My balance impairment is more serious than I realized or admitted. I have given up being a stand up guy on a surfboard {but not in life}before I came down here this winter and will grab my love of it on my belly for as long as I can, the boogie man, but that’s just the water side of this issue.
I used to run on the rocks on Long Island Maine during the summers I spent there. It’s a kid thing I know, the goat feet movement over uneven ground and I’m cognizant that it diminishes as you age. I have already admitted to the occasional lurch, stagger, unplanned side step and fall {a stagger on steroids}. So there will be no motorbike.
 There have been a couple of great falls in the last five years with the flying down the stairs at Rogers Street in 2007 being the epic fall with life time consequences and if it hadn’t been for Nate & Justine this would be a very different story.  The focal infarct on my brain, from or before the fall, seems to have a bigger impact than I thought. Twice in the last ten days I have slipped or tripped and broken one rib and one expensive camera lens. The rib will heal and someday Nikon will realize that plastic lens mounts to a metal body are not that strong. At least the first time it happened I wasn’t the catalyst as my camera bag fell off a bar stool, which I never have.
It still is a step in the direction of getting older physically in my life. At 66 I know the stats say I have another seven {I like to spell it as it seems longer} to go and I’m thinking longer if you look at my mom’s side of the DNA. So how am I going to walk my way through how many miles there are left for me on the road? That is a part of it. I look at the next seven as being on the road. I have ideas, plans but I’m very dynamic about when I can go where next. For now I just have to be able to work out the wobble, stumble, stagger part of it.
After the neuro tests with MRI/dye testing and an expensive neuro consult that medicare {the curse of care in the US for me} didn’t cover, it was determined that I had a “slight drop in my left foot, a reduction of sensation in my left side predominantly in the hip and continuum of the lower left side”.
I’m surely not saying that my body is rushing to feebleness and that I won’t be able to do the many miles to go on this road. I’m just sayin that now I have to start thinking about how I do it. TmyO...

Friday, December 2, 2011

Monkey mind and monkey bridges...

I remember Suzuki talking about our monkey mind and breath as a way to quiet the monkey mind. How our thoughts try to keep us busy and unaware. I sit here at the table in the early morning hours when there is very little going on that involves humans. The Howlers start at 0500 and call in the day. You can hear the males talking as the troop moves through the bush. The howling goes left to right as I sit at the table and write. Three hours later I know they will be making the big jump to the tree across the fence one by one and then they are gone for the day, making their big loop until it’s 0500 again. Listening to them my own monkey mind sits still not daydreaming just listening.
The Howler is a part of this tropical bush life here there and everywhere where the bush is. I remember the Howlers from a long time ago and then again in Belize when Ginny and I first started going there in 1980.
The Howlers and some other of the peaceful critters who climb in the bush trees have a problem here in Costa Rica. A 2007 study done by Ronald Sanchez of the U of CR shows that CR lost HALF it’s monkey population between 1995-2007. A great majority of these deaths are due to electrocution. The growth here and I imagine in the rest of the fast developing isthmus has spawned thousand’s of Km’s of electric lines. They are uninsulated so monkeys crossing from canopy to canopy and making contact either die, get burned or stunned and fall to the ground where they are vulnerable to the shitload of dogs here. The solution is to insulate but that takes money and process. The federally owned provider, ICE, won’t spend the money and all government here is a cacophony of endless process. A cheaper way is the monkey bridge a safe avenue over the dangerous wires by way of natural hemp rope lines that the monkeys can navigate. {check out Montezuma’s monkey bridge on You Tube}
Mary Lynn Perry is founder of Rainsong Wildlife Sanctuary just south on MZ and has been working with someone from the Cobano office of ICE to raise awareness and get more bridges built so less monkeys and other arboreal climbing canopy critters get electrocuted. Find her and read about the Sanctuary. I’m going to go down and volunteer for the 23-26 of December and see the place firsthand.
The Howlers fill the time when I feel the most in touch with me so far this winter. In the early morning and the sunset both in Panama and here in Montezuma they are the background music in the time that  means the most to me right now in my life.
Suzuki spoke about the breath as a gate that moves back and forth quietly, peacefully, quieting the monkey mind. Would that all the Howlers could move as peacefully. Just sayin. TmyO...

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

estar en las nubes- to daydream...

I come from a line of daydreamers. My father told the story of why he left the Catholic Church when he was in high school like the 9th grade, not paying attention to the lesson looking out the window and just “daydreaming” and the nun had a yard stick, whacked him with it twice on the hands and head. He hit her a shot and walked out of school and never went back.
I was maybe 12 years old when he told me the story in the context of a moral story about how hitting is never the solution to a problem {unless it’s a crazy nun with a stick} it was the first time I thought about the concept of dreaming while your still awake. How cool is that? You just sort of gaze out there and let the mind run with it. I couldn’t get my 12 yo brain arms around it so I just did it. Four years later I began to give it some philosophical thought time and since it was the end of the Beats and the start of the 60’s, daydreaming took on new scope and sometimes our mind would run all the way with it.
I’m doing it again now that I’m in the last quarter of my life cause there is much more time estar en las nubes. The mind doesn’t run with it anymore as it just sort of wanders. You have time as you are running out of time and the most pressing things are basic survival skills and the beach. To dream during the day like little brain naps now and then. Think about it. { or don’t, let me do it for you and you just wander and wonder} it’s not like you are unconscious in the dark where you might dream or not. You probably can’t remember most of them and you can never, never, get right back to it and pick up where you left off. There is no On Demand in your brain at night and that’s OK with me as I’d rather do it during the day when you are right in the middle of the shit. Sitting on the beach at Red Frog with binoculars in my hand not looking through them, just looking off. Daydreaming about when I remembered my first beach. When was it? Where was it? Just wandering and wondering. Now I know what my da mean’t and have given some non daydreaming time to it. We know the mind’s edge can get duller as we age but the daydreaming time still stays sharp I think. I mean how many old people do you see that just seem to daydream with a smile? 
 I try to write in the morning while it’s still cool, the end of the noisy monkey night {why do you think they call them Howlers?} and there seems to be more time available before the sun demands following at the beach. Estar en las nube, to daydream. This took 2 1/2 hours to compose and I counted four wanders. Nice way to spend some time. just sayin, TMyo...

Monday, November 28, 2011

Crossing the line...

When you cross borders down here it can be quite the event ranging from pretty easy if you are in an executive coach company that will take care of the border crossing by getting all the paperwork done when you board, to crossing the line on your own. It also depends on which line you are crossing and which way you are going, seriously it’s different going from Costa Rica to Panama then from Panama to Costa Rica The line between C.R. and Nicaragua is border crossing chaos with people everywhere, policia, transito policia and coyotes { the horde of money changers}. People leaving and coming, coming and going and people not going anywhere. The coyotes  are like fleas with a big wad of notes in one hand and the coyote calculator in the other. One gives them currency from one country and they quickly do their numbers on the calculator and show you the exact sum that they are happy to give you. Except most of the time the cc is fixed so that they are actually giving you 10% less but they show you the all mighty calculator like  electronics don’t lie. Bancos are a pain in the ass but at least you get a valid rate. Be prepared to walk though the coyote crowd ready to throw out a “largate” "piss off" to the most ardent currency rat.
The most important part is being drogas and dinero clean. no drugs, no shitload of money and no false bottom briefcases. The crossing from Panama to C.R. has a lot of scrutiny. Now I’m not stupid so I always make sure when I cross any line that I’m the perfect law abiding citizen whether it’s crossing the line into Northern Ireland or back into Costa Rica on the way from Panama. A dozen passengers on Nature Air’s godawful early morning flight to San Jose from Bocas and I was probably the oldest person on the flight and definitely the one with a shitload of tattoos. We landed at Tobias which is the redheaded {sorry Katy K.} stepsister of the internacional aeroporto. There were the officials waiting for this little plane with 4 policia, 4 customs and a dog and handler. Now I know HST is gone and wasn't on the flight but I has just finished reading Cocaine Nation as I have ranted so was pretty cool about the whole thing and ore concerned how I was going to get to Jaco and confidently innocent. We single filed to immigration while our bags waited for us to bring them through customs. the young handler had the dog all over our luggage and I start looking at all the other passengers trying to figure out who is the big narco smuggler bringing shit back from Bocas? Then the dude brings the dog over to us and he lets the dog go around my legs and then between them. I don't make a move for the dog, no nice little pero pat just ignore the dog. Now I'm a clean line crosser so I'm getting a little pissed that this is silly and is it because of my tattoos? I'm just an old guy traveling on the road and having a ball so don't profile my ass. Through immigration adn the my backpacks and bag through the xray machine and now it's wait a minute let's look in your stuff. They look at my little Buddha which has a hole in it's terra cotta bottom and the dude's trying to figure out if it's a pipe or something but then they strike pay dirt or at least that's what they think. They find my 66 year old guy with medical issues like high BP, arthritis and start questioning me about the meds. Uh oh, pain meds, pain meds that I got over the counter in C.R. from the hospital and Dr Mandosa for legit reasons. OK maybe I had more than he prescribed but they were over the counter so wtf? The world stopped, three more officials showed up and 'm just trying to get to Montezuma which they affectionately call Montefumar so it's sort of like bringing coals to Newcastle or a hooker to a whorehouse. "No,no,no you can't have these senor unless you have a prescription!" So I whip out my Mass General Shoulder center letter from the chairman of the department stating the I'm basically a one armed paperhanger on narcotics so it's OK, si? No I wind up opening my shirt, showing them the scar splaining that you hand the Rx {prescription in pharmacy/medical talk} and they give you the meds and keep the prescription paper. You fucking dolt! But I didn't say that and then finally after the dog had another go around with my stuff they must have thought this poor old gringo is so lame and the head {no pun intended but he had a huge one}custom policia said that he will let it go this time, like there is going to be a repeat of this farce? Off I go to Jaco to party for the night and then the sloppy boat ride to MZ.
Five days later I go into a small plastic carryout bag that i had put my concentrated laundry soap and shaving cream in and in the bottom of the bag is the little plastic envelope that a friend had given me in Bocas with a small bud for Red Frog Beach one day. Holy shit, dumb dog and lucky guy, who didn't know he crossed the line when he crossed the line. Just saying. TmyO...

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Lost and found...

Ginny told me that there is a room in heaven waiting for you with all the cool shit you lost during your life. I think there are two rooms for me. Some things are lost and some things evaporate, gone with the wind. Francis Woodman Cleaves my wonderful Buddhist teacher who wasn’t told me the Sanskrit word Nirvana mean’t fwhhhht, with the wind. I spent four hours last night way into the early morning writing a post that has to be written while I'm on the road this winter. Another great night on the road with new people and Rosie the musician/flower girl/storyteller from Bocas showing up and the ink in the blagh pen was rum. It was a long post and there were notes and tears and it was pretty potent stuff. The blogger automatically saves a post every minute so you don't lose everything if the power goes out {it does in fits and spurts daily it seems} or the Internet goes down {constantly}. It seems the only draft not saved was the last one and it hurts. I opened my soul about the purpose of this trip and waxed poetically into the night and early morn. Then the Internet went down and as it went down the post went up to my lost shit rooms. I was a little pissed but then I realized like giving my stuff away before I left, like losing my glasses and hearing aid to a thief in Bocas, it's just stuff. I'll never get those words back and the post was truly the highpoint of anything I throw up here but maybe it was just an exercise, an editing opportunity and when I finally get the post done it will be even better. Or it won't but like stolen shit, when it's gone it's gone and we have to learn to let go. All that happens after the loss is just more messing with your life and losing time on the road by feeling angry, hurt, bad, pissed off. Time away from where you is.
So that's the lost and now the found. It never balances out in life as one seems bigger than the other but this time the found outweighs the lost. While walking down the killer hill to town an ATV went by with a dude and a chica on it and the chica waved and I thought they were stopping to let me hop on so I hoofed it toward them but with a wave off they went like they were screwing with me. The holy shit light bulb went off, it was Rosie the musician/flower girl/storyteller from Bocas. This shit happens all the time on the road whether you know the person or recognize the face, many peeps show up again on the road. Rosie is on her way to Nicaragua to visit her brother and then back here to MZ for the NYE madness. We spent some time listening to some musica and then had dinner catching up on the post Bocas time. She is staying with a friend and she is not singing yet as her throat is still bothering her since Bocas. She still did her thing promoting herself, promoting live music, why places should pay musicians and meeting peeps who may want her to play when she comes back.
Later while waiting for a taxi, watching the night build at Chico’s the center of the Montezuma universe I met Mike and Mimi as I was doing a shot of Cafe Patron. Shared the extra half shot they give me now {bad news, more friendly bartenders} with Mike and he bought the next round. They live halfway up killer hill and have been coming here for years from Oregon. Their house is in one of the most incredible MZ spots with a panoramic view of the ocean high up with no neighbors and just primo. They told me if the red gate is open come on by.
So let me see, I lost an incredible post, found Rosie again and a couple of new peeps in MZ. I guess it’s all OK cause after all it’s just the game of lost and found. Just sayin, TmYo...

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Made a list and checking it twice...

Riptide Bar
Red Frog Beach
Cocaine Nation rant
Once and awhile one of those times happens when you are on the road...
The German and the Italian
Breakfast Club
lulas
Canadians, sushi Bars and Rosie the storyteller...
So this is what I said I would get to once I recovered from Bocas Day and here it is Montezuma time and haven't even done Bocas Day yet. So in the interest of being tru dat and hanging out watching the ants go everywhere the rum has been {which if the ants are a GPS, the rum has been in a lot of places, of course my head could tell you pretty much the same thing}.

  • Riptide Bar- a stranded old fishing boat that will never leave the dock again and as long as there is electricity to power the bilge pumps which along with the expat customers keeps it afloat. They are the bar with the sign out front that says, "wicked clean Ice $1.00". It's called the old man's bar and it is. A bunch of expats who are living like many others {could be me if I'm not careful} who everyday are there spending the retired time smoozing, drinking and opinionating. Sitting and observing, winding up there pretty much everyday for a pint or a cherry bomb {cherry vodka and RB} ONLY because it was four minutes from Lula's where I was staying but never the last stop at night. These are boat peeps either still or before. Florida and Texas and Saturday college football is a burner. Where I learned that the private kids school in Bocas is the only place where the Christmas Pageant has an open bar and a bunch of the dads can be found sharing a joint. The kid who owns the bar got it from the previous owners who went through a nasty divorce where she owned the land/dock and he the boat. So he took the boat away and it sunk at a dock somewhere in Panama. the judge mediating the divorce apparently was a fan of the boatbar so he ordered the dude to bring the boat back and it wound up with the new owners.
  • Red Frog Beach- a 15 minute boat ride from Bocas town on Isla Bastimentos and a beautiful beach with good surf and a great beach bar. Yes and the wonderful little red dart frogs that if you spnd the time on the edge of the bush you will find them sitting on a large leaf with a little safe bit of water in it. If you don't want to spend the time you can give the chiquitos a Balboa {$1} to take a picture of the frog they carry around in a folded up leaf with the little safe spot of water. For three days I paid the boys $3 to let the frogs go in the bush and told them to get another frog so it didn't screw their little cottage business and didn't fuck the frog up too much. Like every other part of this trip there IS a bar involved and they make a $2.50 version of Poon Juice. Mi amigos Miguel and Angelo kept me suitably cool in the Isthmus sun many days and more to come. Came out here with Britta and Serge who were staying at Lula's and became my local traveling buddies. More on them later.
  • Cocaine Nation Rant- my #1 Portsmouth homeboi told me to read Cocaine Nation, How the White Trade Took Over the World by Tom Feiling. I would strongly urge at least every thinking adult in the US to read it. One of the most well researched and footnoted tomes I've read and if you read it, no matter where you stand on the issue of drugs, you have to come away with a lot more information than you ever had. You will realize the futility and total waste of money devoted to the hopeless war on drugs. If you think Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq are expensive and frustrating, hang on to your hats. Stunning and informative. That's all the rant time I have now but being here on the road in Central America and having been in Sud America it pisses you off what the United States has fostered and how we throw money in the wrong direction. Just sayin...
  • Once and awhile one of those times happens when you are on the road- I will admit right up front that the day was definately alcohol fueled in the sense it started with a bloody at a socially appropriate hour {at least Bocas time} and ended with me falling asleep in the hammock on the veranda at Lula's at midnite watching a lizard lick either orange juice or rum from the lip of my glass. In between however it was one of those times you get once and awhile if you are on the road. A totally Bocas bliss day. Red Frog with good boogie surf and rum punch. Stopping at the edge of the mangrove to watch the sloths in the tree and if I had the fucking internet here in my new temporary place {didn't call it a home} I would at least Wiki the seven deadly sins an tell you which one sloth is. They hang out in the tall trees eating leaves and you can start to look for them if you see pieces of leaves falling out of trees. On the way back in Don Choy's boat we stop and watch the dolphins break, snort and fin back in the water. Had to head to the store to get some water {agua en Panama=probably the shits. I would say Montezuma's revenge but it doesn't happen here in Montey where I write}. Stopped at Riptide for my new friend Bloody Mary and then off to dinner at Raw Tokyo sushi bar which has to have it's own post because of the influence on me coming back to Bocas. Just the best little place and one of the best hang outs I have ever had on the road. Dinner with Brittany and the boys and girl is an evening of botique sushi, Lychee martini's, shots of Seco {rum based grain} Argentinian sax chica and joy. On the walk back to Lula's walking by the handicrafts stalls with the ubiquitos bracelets, anklets and stuff I heard musica and followed it to a stall where a chica was singing and playing acoustic guitar with four older guys sitting making appreciative percussion while she sang. You could have been in Havana if you closed your eyes. Some of the hostel horde gathered and sat on the sidewalk listening as this young woman named Rosie from Barcelona played the shit out of musica de Espana. She then handed her guitar to another guy {Alberto} who just ripped into two tunes and then he handed it to this older dude and I mean older then me who just chilled the night out ala Buena Vista, Afro Cuban Allstars style. Alberto is passing around Seco to the players and as I was recording he gave a shot to me. I met the Barcelonoian, Rosie, then moved on to finish the walk at Mondo Tattou hostel for a car bomb with the bartender which seemed to have become the last stop some nights. As we're doing the car bomb Deadmau5 Strobe comes on. A favorite to say the least. I figure you can't top this day so I take the short walk to Lula's, grab my rum and oj from earlier and settle in the hammock in the quiet of the Bocas night and as I fell asleep there was the lizard.
  • The German and the Italian- going back to the people you meet on the road post and how it is always so interesting when you meet peeps who were made to meet, the German and the Italian chef are two prime examples. Britta and Serge were on holiday from their home in Berlin and became such good road friends and companions for some of the previous posts. They wound up going to Riptide on their own then with me to Mondo Tattou and Red Frog beach bar and Raw Tokyo. Serge was a student of Britta's in a German language class and apparently not the best student. They both spoke German and Italian and Britta wonderful English. Serge and I talked through Britta but we both spoke the same language of friendship. He is the chef of an Italian restaurant in Berlin and she facilitates education/training and sheparding Italian dudes through the guttural German language.  If there are two people I could go on about it would be these two. I miss them.
  • Breakfast Club and Lulu's- I have to say that the middle group of people at Lulu's were such good travelers on this road. Let me say if you are going to Bocas stay at lulu's. Location {four minutes from Riptide, a short stumble home] and a wonderful breakfast with four to five of us there. Britta, Serge, Clayton, Cheryl and later Brian, Bralee and a great couple who age and deafness and bad note taking has put their names in the blank bank. If you look at the FB pics of the going away party they are the couple in front of the mural. He is the one cupping the breast and she is the breast. We had a great time. I can't leave this without talking briefly about Meghen and Grant who were minding the store for the owners of Lulu's. They are the shits! Perfect hosts to enjoy synergies and smooth awkward moments of anonymous people becoming nonymous {such a word?}. Grant runs the Bocas Surf School and Meghen and their rescue Jack Russell Ozzie ran the world at Lulu's. I look foward to being back there in a couple of months and I would be happy to call them friends. Too much too late to get into much detail but I don't know the owners of Lulu's and as far as I'm concerned these two are Lulu's, B & B's, sustainable ecoculture, surf and compassionate peeps who saw a little dog and cared. 
  • Canadiens, sushi bars and Rosie the story teller- Clayton, Cheryl, Brian, Bralee, Kyle, Melissa and Brittany are the Canadians. Raw Tokyo is the sushi bar and believe me they will get their own post and Rosie the storyteller is the Barcelonian guitar musician who made wonderful little colored foam flowers with each color a story of someone on the street she has met while playing around the world.
Apology for the long post. If you made it to the end of this try ibooks.
Just saying...tmYo



    Monday, November 21, 2011

    For someone who is balance impaired this may not be the best idea...

    So I moved into the cabin in the bush in Montezuma {actually manana but went there first when I got here}. The boat from Jaco was the usual rolling ride with some aerials every now and then. I sat forward in the sun and took the first aerial landing with a good wave wash. I was saline soaked walking up from the beach toward where I thought the cabin is but of course did not have directions and was relying on last winter's info from a resident that it was up the hill a little way. That hill goes on forever and the little way is like 3km I think. With 2 packs, boogie board and roughly 80lbs of pack weight I slogged up and up and up and up. Sweating and now dirty i must have looked like Sisyphus, eternally damned or at least damned at the moment.
    "As a punishment from the gods for his trickery King Sisyphus was made to roll a huge boulder up a steep hill. Before he could reach the top, however, the massive stone would always roll back down, forcing him to begin again.[4] The maddening nature of the punishment was reserved for King Sisyphus due to his hubristic belief that his cleverness surpassed that of Zeus Himself. Zeus accordingly displayed his own cleverness by consigning Sisyphus to an eternity of useless efforts and unending frustration. Thus it came to pass that pointless and/or interminable activities are sometimes described as Sisyphean."
    I seriously started to worry that it could end on this hill in heat exhaustion so I did stop halfway and drink the water I had left. Neil Young lyrics popped into mind when I wondered about the image of me collapsed still in my packs.
    "Old man sitting
    by the side of the road
    With the lorries rolling by,
    Blue moon sinking
    from the weight of the load"
    I started up again and was at the point when I was slogging one slow step at a time and a truck stopped and gave me a ride up the hill. The dude said he stopped cause it looked like I was going to die and a man my age should stick his thumb out. they gave me a ride to the top of the hill and left me so on I trudged with no idea now where I was going. I stopped after another half Km I think and decided to thumb back to town and then it started to rain, not hard but rain. Pack covers and poncho but I knew if I tried to walk with the poncho on it would be a quick sauna death. For an hour I thought about how this was such a shit day and where it was in the shit day index in my life. It stopped raining and the same peeps came back up the road and stopped asking what the hell was I doing. They still didn't know the name of the place but when I mentioned the name of some guy someone who spoke no english mentioned he said they would take me there. 
    The cabin had just been vacated and Windy wasn't around so I looked at the place, wondered if this was all a good idea and maybe I should just go back to Bocas but figured I'd lie in one of the hammocks for a bit. It didn't take long to hear and see the jungle life right in front of me and listen to the nothing but natural sounds to realize that it would be OK. Smelling like weasel shit I put the packs back on, left the boogie board and case and went back out to the road to hitch a ride, bus or taxi. On the way back to town looking at the road and hill I knew it would get me sooner or later if walking was my mode of transport. Bus is infrequent, taxis could be a cost going into town twice a day and a bicycle was not going to be a much better option with that hill and gravel road. I checked into the same place I stayed in February and after a shower, two chilled shots of Cafe Patron, two coronas at Chico's {so much more on Chico's later} and dinner I went to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night consumed with the idea of getting a cheap dirt bike to make the daily trips but not the one at night after Chico's. 
    Several of my peeps before I left expressed concern about me being on a Puch or a scooter let alone a dirt bike. Rightly so perhaps for someone who has had a couple of concussions, taken flight down stairs with a head injury, getting hit by a car and having a cerebral infarct at some point. Occasionally I lurch and now pretty much am tethered to a boogie board where there isn't too far to fall. Balance impaired is appropriate. 
    I bumped into Pia who I surfed with last winter and hung out a little bit with him catching up and mentioned the dirt bike idea and whatdyathink? He's selling his. When I laughed about being balance impaired he said just go faster and it stays straight.
    Looking for a cheap 100cc bike. 
    "Wild old gringo going straight down the road"
    just saying...tommyO

    Hand job or pulling strings...

    Tried to send a message to a friend today and thought I lost both the message and this post and then the Internet went down and lost it again. The third time that I have written and seen it go away but somehow got it back to both. Now that I'm in Montezuma with roots for a couple of months it's time to get serious about how how this shit works.
     So it's time to come out in the open and let you know that I have been hiding something for a long time but life is free and and reckless now so I don't care if you all know {all six of you}.  I have been a closet puppeteer since 1953 {I think}when I got a Howdy Doody puppet {pulling strings} which I wish I still had $$$$.
    "Howdy Doody himself is a freckle-faced boy marionette with 48 freckles, one for each state of the union (up until January 3, 1959 when Alaska was admitted as the 49th state), and was originally voiced by Buffalo Bob Smith.[2] The Howdy Doody show's various marionettes were created and built by puppeteers Velma Wayne Dawson, Scott Brinker (the show's prop man) and Rufus Rose throughout the show's run.[3] The redheaded Howdy marionette on the original show was operated with 11 strings: two heads, one mouth, one eye, two shoulders, one back, two hands and two knees. Three strings were added when the show returned—two elbows and one nose."
    I bought two hand/glove puppets {hand job} last winter in Montezuma and anyone who came to the house have met Montey & Zoomy. If I had two more hands we would already have done a threesome but with only two, someone has to watch. Scary shit if it's me! So part of this winter is making it happen. I've spent more time researching {my way in projects and life it seems} than puppetry but it feels right in the groove. Shared the idea with the Lula's legion and the Raw Tokyo team and they dig it.
    Have some peeps looking for a space in Bocas Del Toro that can be both a small living space and a performance/gallery space to spend some time over the next couple of years working with puppets cross pollinating with music, spoken word and image both still and moving. There are a number of resident musicians there and seems like others who roll through Bocas or will when my old homebois and grrlz want to go somewhere in the NH winter. I spent a little bit of time with a mask maker in Bocas and he is interested in carving masks for real body puppets as well as trying 4/6 string marionettes. I'm in Montezuma and trying to find the dude that made my two hand/glove puppets and hooking up with a couple of peeps to do something on New Year's Eve. It will be the first performance for Montey & Zoomy's Teatro Titeres and it's called, Titeres Playa or puppet beach. Doing it on the beach with fire dancing, musica and titeres {either glove or masked human puppetry}. I've been working on this idea and this piece and have even applied for membership to Union Internationale de la Marionnette which has huge global network of puppeteers. All you have to do is spend a wee bit of time in the Cloud to see how big puppetry is. My hope in Bocas is that besides with the schools it will catch on and become a puppet/art space for people to come to. Supporting the Puppet Slam Network and maybe even getting some peeps from the Ballard Institute at UConn to come down and participate and perform is part of the dream state. I hope to do a piece before I leave Bocas and move there in October and get rolling. Would you expect anything else out of me? just saying...tmyO

    Friday, November 18, 2011

    Spinning with Spinoza...

    "All laws which can be violated without doing anyone any injury are laughed at. Nay, so far are they from doing anything to control the desires and passions of man that, on the contrary, they direct and incite men's thoughts toward these very objects; for we always strive toward what is forbidden and desire the things we are not allowed to have. And men of leisure are never deficient in the ingenuity needed to enable them to outwit the laws framed to regulate things which cannot be entirely forbidden. He who tries to determine everything by law will foment crime rather than lessen it."
    Baruch Spinoza, Political Treatise, 1677

    just sayin...tmyO

    Tuesday, November 15, 2011

    It's Bocas and it's gonna be Bocas Day...

    Dudes and ladies I have to tell you this and only this right now that this town is sweet and this day is the day. {a lot of this's I know}. Right now it's 0115 and there is a band on the grandstand and another to follow. Already had a lot of drtummers, baton chicas and a whole bunch of Bocas peeps, Bascimente peeps and all the peeps from Bocas Del Dragos, Isla Zapitilla and the rest of the archapeligo. They are all in for Bocas Day and I can only start to tell you until I recover on Thursday. It is tha shits. This is the fourth of July Bocas style and if parades from 1000 until 2000 are not enough, try the serious community party that follows. When I recover from the Day I will update the crazy ass shit that has been tracking this trip. Such as:

    • Riptide Bar
    • Red Frog Beach
    • Cocaine Nation rant
    • Once and awhile one of those times happens when you are on the road...
    • The German and the Italian
    • Breakfast Club
    • lulas
    • Canadians, sushi Bars and Rosie the storyteller...
    At the moment the street is thick with celebratory families, chicas, dudes and policia and it is all so good but not the time to do this as it is a picture taking day tomorrow. So Britta and Sergio will be gone, Rosie is here with flowers, voice and instrument so we will be spinning some "merde de blagh" arpound Thursday. TmO...

    Thursday, November 10, 2011

    ¿No oyes ladrar los perros? {don't you hear the dogs barking?}

    I've been hearing the dogs barking since I got here. It started the first night in Bocas when I stayed at El Limbo {from the Latin word limbus, edge or boundary, referring to the "edge" of Hell and appropriately named} when the dog next door barked until midnight and started again at 0700 as I have already ranted about. There are a lot of dogs in Bocas as there always are when perros voy a hacer sin proteccion. The little Jack Russell at Lula's will run to the gate and bark his disapproval of one local dog and there always seems to be at least one dog barking. They are lucky they are running in the streets of Bocas and not Korea or they would wind up in "BoShinTang" ( Dog Stew). Even though I could have had that un-Buddhist moment with the dog at El Limbo, unless it's a Tofu Pup, it's not a part of my world.
    It reminded me of the barking dogs in Belfast Northern Ireland. In the Nationalist communities like Springhill and Andersontown the neighborhood dogs would bark at the British military patrols when they came through the neighborhood, every time. Never once did a dog bark at me when I walked through both communities. The late Fr. Des Wilson a wonderful PP {parish priest} and a staunch defender of human and civil rights in Northern Ireland told me that it was a signal to the community to be on alert when they heard the dogs bark. When I commented that it was probably the uniforms he ventured that the dogs were good at smelling oppression said with a hint of a smile.
    Of course I'm not letting you off that easy without pondering why dogs bark at each other or voice anger opposition to oppression. The second most common reason that dogs are brought to shelters is incessant barking. A big part of canine behaviourist practice is the control of barking. Even the type of bark has been studied by someone on a research grant from somewhere:


    • Continuous and fast barking, at a medium pitch: Alert. Problems. Some is entering our territory.
    • Continuous and slow barking, at a low pitch: The intruder or danger is close. Prepared to defend itself.
    • Fast barking with pauses every 3 or 4: Warning of a problem approaching. Asking you to investigate.
    • Long and drawn-out barks at a high pitch, with pauses between each one: I'm alone and need company.
    • One or two short high pitched barks: The most normal greeting.
    • One bark normal pitch: Curious, alert.
    • Short back in a high pitch: Shows surprise. If it's repeated twice it means "Look at this!" If it's longer then it calling. Many dogs use this when they want to go out.  
    • Brief bark, at medium pitch: Happiness.
    • Faltering bark at medium pitch: Asking to play.
    • Howl or short bark at a high pitch: "Ouch!" Response to sudden pain.
    • Repeated howls and regular intervals: Suffering from extreme pain or something that scares them. 
    • High pitch or urgent barks that sound desperate, without apparent reason: It is a way some dogs use to let out steam.
    I obviously look this stuff up and don't have it sitting in some corner of my brain because if you know me, you know that most times I don't even know where my keys are.
    The thing that I couldn't find anywhere and leave you to ponder;
    Do the dogs in Bocas bark in Spanish? Just wondering, TmO...

    Things you might see while lying in a hammock...

    • palm trees swaying in the wind
    • Frigate birds suspended in the wind
    • vultures sitting on a pole
    • a coconut falling
    • people passing in the street
    • hummingbirds fighting for the feeder
    • flowers
    • a duck crossing the road
    • the ubiquitous yellow taxi
    • a cat
    • children playing
    • neighborhood dogs
    • clouds passing by
    • time passing by
    • no reason to get up...

    People on the Road-dos

    You find people in all sorts of places and some are in that great location. "least likely". Wandering around Bocas looking to eat I find a sushi place Raw Tokyo with a funky menu for a veggiemate. Little place with a Rastafarian Itamae although he would say that he was more a Shokunin, someone just skilled at a profession. Trust me he is an Itamae as I have eaten there three of the last four nights and both taste and presentation qualifies him for the honorific title. The place is owned by a 23 year old chica from Toronto who came to Bocas five years ago and loved it so much she came back and opened her own business. {remember my comment about going somewhere and filing the memory for a later time?} She has been open for six months and I think she is going to do well. Tener cajones for any 23 year old to start a business let alone in a foreign country. My second night there drinking sake and Lychee martinis, she said she had entertainment which turned out to be this wonderful Argentinian chica sax player Julieta {hoo-lee}. We drank Lychee's and talked and she also has been in Bocas foe a bit playing around leaving only to do other Panama gigs and studio work back in S.A.
    It made me think about the saxophone and it's inadvertent influence on my life and relevance to this whole on the road thing. The Beat Generation spawned this road and sitting here in Bocas at Raw Tokyo I understand how the sax tuned the Beat Generation and Kerouac even titled a novel Dr Sax although it wasn't the instrument he was referring to;
    "The eponymous Doctor Sax, also part of Jackie's fantasy world, is a dark, but ultimately friendly, figure with a shroud black cape, a inky black slouch hat, a haunting laugh, and a "disease of the night" called Visagus Nightsoil that causes his skin to turn mossy green at night. Sax, who also came to Lowell because of the Great World Snake, lives in the forest in the neighboring town of Dracut, where he conducts various alchemical experiments, attempting to concoct a potion to destroy the Snake when it awakens." Yeah, Iknow, heavy shit! Read the book.
    Watching her play her alto sax I could see that the sax was an instrument of romance and passion. You hold in in your hands close to your body in almost an embrace using a reed which contours to the lips. So unlike the trumpet that requires tight pursed lips with outstretched elbows {I am generalizing I know as I have seen Miles Davis play and he made love to his trumpet} and is an instrument for war in some hands. No cavalry charge has ever been led my some dude on a horse playing the alto sax!
    Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Stan Getz, Coleman Hawkins and Lester "Prez" Young would never had led a charge to battle. The sax, the instrument of passion and poetry has been the background music for more people fucking than dying.
    Even though you didn't ask:
    the saxophone is a conical bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. It was invented by Antoine-Joseph (Adolphe) Sax in 1841 and he showed his first creation, a C-bass {not the Chilean type} to Hector Berlioz {now there is a name to drop}. In 1842 Berlioz published an article in Paris Magazine 'Journal Des Bats' describing the instrument.
    I went back last night for more sushi and more entrepreneurial and creative chicas and will listen to sax music and drink Lychee martinis this night as well. And did I mention that I will go back tomorrow night for Raw Tokyo's big event with all the sushi, sake, Lychee Martinis and sax sounds you want? Some great moments and some great people on this road. Just sayin, TmO...

    Monday, November 7, 2011

    when is it time to travel?...

    Anytime is the simple answer but not always the practical one. Before I left NH when all my peeps were so tired of the "Tom's trip" story, some would express envy and wish they could do the same. I would tell them and anyone that you can be on the road even if it's only one week a year. Save dinero and pick a place where you would love to be and go. Stay your time and then file the memories for some future date in time when you have the freedom or space to be on the road to go back to that place. That's how I found Montezuma and that memory brought me back last year for a week and is taking me back this year for 2 1/2 months. Whatever holiday time you get spend it somewhere that stokes your fire and be me for a week.
    We have times of responsibilty and times of necessity but never should we have times of waste. Someone said that I retired in my twenties and then went to work in my thirties and now I'm seriously retired in my sixties. In the midst were my times of responsibilty and necessity, even though the same someone would question the responsibilty part.
    Young or old which way to go? I say both because they share the same romance but differ in approach. The spirit of the road I have now is the same as I remember it was then except now there is more consideration for the physical part. The old fart on the road syndrome where you try to carry a lighter pack {not the case here with the pack everything cause you never know boy} and tend to be more judicious about your route with that pack on your back. I'm still going to bungee jump in Gracea Costa Rica but I'm going to take a bus to get there instead of hiking up. I have my siesta now that I didn't have the need for then and of course I pee a lot more than I did then so long bus rides have added urgency. I love the fact that the spirit is still the same, same heart, older frame.
    It's not so much the timing as it is the execution. Whether you're on the road when you're young or old, the important part is being on the road.
    "Salvatore “Sal” Paradise and his new friend Dean Moriarty, much admired for his care-free attitude and sense for adventure, a free-spirited maverick eager to explore all kicks, and an inspiration and catalyst for Sal’s travels." Find your inspiration like Sal did with Dean in On the Road and find that person in you, who like Dean, is "tremendously excited with life." TmO...

    Bocas 1...

    You wouldn't think that the sun tan kid would want to be in a place like Bocas with the funky weather it has. On the Caribe coast it has rain everyday and cloud cover a lot. people here will tell you and I confirm it after a couple of days, that if there wasn't the cloud cover it would 95 and humid. You sweat anyway and it is not unusual to have breakfast outdoors with an early morning sheen of sweat. It's ok because all the other gringos do the same so you don't look any different and somehow that makes it ok.
    Sitting on the second floor veranda at Lulas watching the rain and the hummingbirds at the feeder and pairs flying thru the balcony it doesn't matter that there is rain because there is plenty of time. It's not like a vacation/holiday of two weeks where you feel that the weather is stealing valuable time when it rains or there is no sun. I have to remind myself that this is a trip. Last winter was a holiday, this winter a trip and next fall a move. So the rain doesn't interfere and the sweat doesn't matter cause this is Bocas and this tri[p is five months long.
    Bocas town is the center of the archipelago but the other islands are the charm. The national refuge and places like Red Frog beach are stunning. The mode of transport here to the islands are boatmen who will take you anywhere for low money. They either pull up to the landing or they pick you up and drop you off everywhere on the water. On land it's either walk, bike or one of the madly driven yellow taxu trucks that are everywhere and for a buck you can go anywhere in town. The roads were paved two years ago so now you need to be careful if you are not in the taxi as you may be a target.
    Bocas reminds me a lot like Belize was years ago. It has it's own pace and that pace is slow. The people are lovely but the pace IS slow unless it's a yellow taxi. Having dinner will not be a quick experience and you have to learn to slow down. My kids would tell you that Bocas is an unlikely Papa stopo because of the slow service, sweat and bugs. The bugs are everywhere from the no seeums to the mosquitoes which can be brutal. Besides being obnoxious they also can be dangerous as the two types of skitos carry malaria and yellow fever. The Tiger mosquito or the anopheles carries malaria and the the Stegomyia mosquito vector, which is the yellow fever mosquito {now more accurately named Aedes aegypti}carries the Yellow Jack or Yellow Fever. I'm taking anti malarial meds because of the time and places I'll be in Panama. Funny that the name Malaria is spanish for bad air {mal aria} that was so named because tha's where people got it, from the swamps and marshes. Over 22,000 people died from Yelloow Fever during the French attempt to build a canal through Panama I asked me pcp if there was any side effect from the quinine based drug and he said there was only one, pyschosis. That's one of the reasons you start it the week before you leave, to see if you go nuts. Hmmm. Let's see, malaria, yellow fever, Dengue fever and Typhus, ok so now instead of smelling like Ralph Lauren Romance I smell like 100% DEET which only side effect is I might grow a second head. TmO...

    people on the road 1...

    Bocas-
    I often have wondered if there would be a chance to meet the people you meet on the road if you weren't on it? On the road gives you the opportunity to meet others on the path who have either taken a holiday or have taken the time, the one way ticket crowd. People with a plan with confirmations or people with an idea and no confirmation and the only plan is, go ahead. Had breakfast this morning with two peeps from Arizona who were doing the isthmus and Sud America. Lucas and Charlene had been saving for six years, got rid of most of their worldly possessions, took a leave of absence/quit and hit the road. Like me they had a plan for Bocas but no confirmation and wound up here at Lulas. They are one way tik peeps and going to see S.A ending in Rio for Carnival. Planning the sail from San Blas to Cartegena and on the road down to Patagonia and up to Brazil. They also wandered around Bocas looking for a place as I did during a holiday weekend, going from hotel to hotel with no confirmation and no rooms. They got the last room here at Lulas the day before I got here. If I hadn't wanted to play another day in San Jose {was that a song title?} I would not have stayed at the El Limbre in the center of town which was overpriced for what it was and with a dog next door that barked til midnite and started again at 0700. If I had found that dog there would have been a decidedly non Buddhist moment.
    Others on the road afford you the ability to find out of the way places and hot travel tips that Fodors and Lonely Planet won't like a cool place in Puerto Viejo Costa Rica that will be my first stop after Montezuma on the way back into Panama. It's a different world today than it was back then bu the vibe and the people vibe is the same. TmO...

    Sunday, November 6, 2011

    On the road

    If you know me you know that it doesn't really begin on 03/11/11. It began 42 years ago when Paul and I hit the road to see what was out there. Paul, aka the Rocket man, left this journey 25 years ago, too early and with miles to go.
    "And I think it's gonna be a long long time
     til touchdown brings me round again to find
     I'm not the man they think I am at home
     Oh no no no, I'm a rocket man"
    So life finds me where I am today on the road again and living it the way it is.
    This will not be a journal as I packed eight unfinished ones and know that the gaps between entries can be long.
    But boy can I tell stories so that's all I will do because all of the roads we take have stories.
    I'll write down the bones with experience not composition being the driver. I'll apologize in advance for the grammar and spelling mistakes but not for my own.
    And as the Irish say, if that wasn't the way it was, that's the way it should have been. TmO...