Take it Back / Push it Forward (a flashback)

December 31st, 2002.
99 Days on the road.

Last night we rolled into Pasadena. It must have been around 7:00pm when we hit the heart of the city, and despite the fact that I hardly ever take the wheel of this beast, I was tired as hell.
I was thinking back on the conversation I'd had with my Dad over the phone before we left the three million dollar flop house that Flanny's Aunt n' Uncle had bestowed us with for Christmas in the Pacific Palisades. I asked him if he had any suggestions on where we should go for New Years and he recommended Pasadena, for the annual Rose Bowl Parade was happening the next day. We didn't have any other ideas so off we went.
What we saw upon entering the city was too much of a sight to describe justifiably. The streets were overflowing with people... all kinds of people, from families to thugs, white color to blue. All walks of life were present and accounted for. We found a lucky spot to park n' stay the night and then took to the streets to walk amongst the Americans. It didn't take us too long to grab our supplies for the evening's event; A 40 of rum, a mickey of the infamous Black Velvet, a pack of cigars, and a 99 cent big-ass polish sausage, which I ate raw with Mr. Noodles for dinner.
We didn't mingle with the street crowd for very long. We had devised our own agenda. We hopped back into the motor-home and I set up the video camera while Matty and Flan started writing down the names of all our boys back home. There was about 30 in total, so the math worked out like this; we each did a shot for 3 friends at a time, every 13 minutes until the clock struck midnight. No chasers either.
I really don't remember when we started, but I do remember finishing. And by the end of the night were three proud and extremely drunk individuals. With only a small hand-full of minutes until the ball dropped, we jumped out of the motor-home and got immediately separated amongst the mob mentality crowd. I ran up n' down the streets with the video camera, going ape-shit with everyone else. I actually started the countdown on the one side of the street. Everyone was in banner spirits, and it didn't shake me at all that I had no idea where Matt n' Flanny were.
Not long after that, the lights went out in my head and only the playback on the video camera would give us some vague answers the next day.


January 1st, 2003.
100 days on the road.

I woke up in my own piss today. No biggy, except that there are three beds in the motor-home, and we alternate almost every night because they differ in size and comfort. Damned if I wasn't sleeping in the best one. My mind was bombarded with so much happiness when I woke to find that we had all made it back alive, that I really couldn't care less about my mishap. Plus I'm quite certain that Flan already beat me to the punch on this one.
We all seemed to spring to life at the same time, and there was so much going on outside it took a while to sink in. Brand new day, brand new year. Three tight friends at the Rose Bowl Parade with once-in-a-lifetime hangovers. The door to the motor-home swung open and we slowly exited, letting our fragile eyes adjust to omnipresent sun.  Three stealth bombers zoomed by overhead of us in a deafening noise that stirred our headaches like can of rotten fruit. I was happy to see them for the first time but I have no idea how those things can be called 'stealth.'
Out on the street things were booming with even more life than the night before and in our careless mentality, we walked into the middle of the road and lied down in a circle to make our presence known. It wasn't a conscious decision on anyone's part either. I think we all just wanted to be in the heart of all the excitement. We didn't talk much and we didn't need to. I've noticed that the communication patterns of my buddies and I are always on point when we're forced to share the burden/blessing of a hangover. There was definitely a shared feeling of re-birth circulating amongst this massive crowd, and for a good 10 minutes there, nobody had a problem with anybody. Too bad every day can't share the magic of January 1st.
A couple people came by and took pictures of us lying out there on the street, and then we were finally told to get up because the parade was on it's way. It turned out to be awesome, much like any other parade, except bigger, longer and better. Bill Cosby and Mr. Rogers were the grand marshals. I doubt I'll ever see a parade like that again.
Later on, in the midst of it all, I had an embarrassing "only you" kind of moment. Well, it was more than a moment, and I'm funk dubious to write about it so I've decided not to. I can tell it better in person.
The parade was winding down. It was time to leave Pasadena and move on up the P.C.H to find 'Sharkey's', the tattoo studio of Opie Ortiz- the man who was responsible for all of Sublime's album artwork and tattoos, of course. We had a clearly drawn out mission for the remainder of the day. But it wasn't going to be easy. Our hangovers had kicked into a new gear, and getting out of town was a lot more challenging than we had ever imagined. We forgot to consider the rest of the parade traffic. I don't know how long it took us to get on the highway, but it got to the point where we were all babbling incoherently, with a healthy mix of laughter and Buju Banton tunes. Truly a beautiful day.
Finally, we arrived in Sunset Beach to find it was basically just a main drag on the side of the highway.
With oblivious luck we pulled off and parked in front of a small shop that turned out to be Sharky's. Good news- we found it with no problem. Bad news- it was closed. But we were already stoked and  motivated to get our first tattoos. We saw that right across the street was another parlor called 'American Beauty' so we stumbled over to get some ideas and decide how long we were going to stay in town until we found Opie. We walked in to the sound of wild, underground hip-hop. The shop was small but impressive looking. There was burnt out looking dude, prepping another guy for a tattoo and an intimidating mexican working vigorously on a sketch pad in front of us. He stood up and smiled as he walked to the back of the room. He had no front teeth. It was the man himself, Opie Ortiz.
A few hours later we were hot-boxing his washroom.

About a GIRL (part 2): Flashback of Cabin 4011

We had a good thing going, me and that love of mine. We had been living at sea and working as art dealers, of all things, onboard a 5-star cruise ship touring the long jagged coast of Alaska and before that, the Mexican Riviera.

We had swung every way we could to get a job onboard together. What started with a simple over the phone interview, turned into an audition in Toronto, then another interview, and finally the golden ticket; a trip to Michigan for a week long tryout of what we came to believe was secretly a reality TV show along the same lines as Donald Trump's bullshit. It was the longest, most interesting job audition we had ever gone through. One week of mental boot camp in a beautiful art gallery on the south side of the state, complete with butlers, and a team of chefs that made our lunch every day. The food was obviously exquisite, while the training/tryout process was more like a debilitating camp for game show hosts. But we managed to stay on top of the pile of our fellow competitors from around the world, and things were looking promising.
It didn't really matter to us where we were gonna be located, or what calibre cruise line. We just wanted to get on one of those big fuckers and get out to sea. At that point in our lives it was the best plan we had come up with after returning home from Vancouver. The most easily conceived idea of getting at a new life in the farther reaches of the world, without paying for it, and hopefully even making some tender to come home with (hah!).

So we did it. We made the team. We got the job. We drank champagne and listened to cheap, glorious 80's tunes with our new employers. We attended a swanky art party with over-rated professionals, under-rated amateurs and a jazz band. Then we boarded a plane to Mexico and spent one free night in a hotel, with a sunset dinner on the beach. We drank to the surreal-ness of it all and passed out on each other. It's hard to say if we ever really woke up after that. The experience started in such a whirlwind that I hardly recall getting on the boat. We worked our asses off on the days at sea and journeyed off the ship at every port of call, into the quaint towns and cities of the last frontier (or something like that). After two months we had found much inspiration, ate a lot of free food, drank a lot of cheap drinks and sat at the shaky table of some long, hot card games, held discreetly in the bowels of the ship on select nights. This was a risky endeavor because we still hadn't received our first paycheck. But with a job like that, one can easily lose touch with how things operate on the mainland.

Fortunately enough, we were shacked up in a passenger cabin, unlike most other employees on the ship, who live below sea level. We were grateful, but it didn't take us long to kill the passive hotel room vibe of cabin 4011, and turn it into a bungalow with guts. Almost every night before going to sleep I'd look around and admire the nest we'd thrown together. At the entrance was a slim table with two glasses and an ice bucket on a silver platter, kept constant with fresh ice and covered with a lid. The Indonesian housekeeping fellas learned our preferences fast and well.  They provided the freshest of living quarters and even made our bed with the "no tuck" request, all for only two bucks a week.
There was a single chair beside the table. It was never sat in, only used for throwing clothes and bags on. Across from that was the way-to-comfortable bed that made life easy at night, but far too difficult in the morning. The bedside tables on either side were cluttered with notepads, books (2 by Kerouac, and Tom Wolfe's "Electric Kool-aid Acid Test"), as well as framed pictures of our Moms, both passed.  I also had an un-opened mesh bag of marbles, that my Aunt La had given to me long ago, because, she said I had already lost mine.
On the other side of the cabin was a small desk with little to no surface area, covered with work papers that I would never read, and our laptop computer that served the single, most important purpose of pumping out the music. There were pictures n' sketches taped on the walls, given to us by artists we had met onboard. My favorite was the treasure map that Charlie had found in the garbage room of the ship (if I could understand it, I'd still be out there hunting). On the mirror, we had taped photo strips of us from every little picture booth we came across during our time on land. There was a small TV that was good for recent movies and old cartoons- the classic stuff you can still appreciate, like Tom n' Jerry.
But best of all, there was the mini bar, which we had of course stocked to the brim with beer for getting drunk, water for getting sober and milk for eating cereal. And because we were in a guest cabin with the employee benefits of free food, amongst other things, we were the self proclaimed King n' Queen of room service, ordering multiples of everything, with plenty of fresh fruit- a tribute to Raoul Duke.

In terms of the job we had, selling high-end art for ____________________, it was the one and only dose I needed to confirm that I never wanted to work in sales again. It ain't me babe. No, no, no. When it comes to selling expensive shit you don't want to begin with, it ain't me you're lookin' for, babe. On my very first night, I sold a $6000 lithograph by an artist I can't remember now. After that, I couldn't close anything over 3 grand. Every so often Charlie would reel in a small whale for $10,000 or more. The biggest prize was a tag-team effort, in which we sold an $80,000 Miro original painting when we were on the Carnival cruise-liner. Other than that, it was one of the shittiest jobs I've ever had. Even despite the free food and the mints on the pillows, I couldn't stand the clean shaved, suited n' booted routine of trying to convince Gramma Jojo to spend her grandson's inheritance on a piece of art that she couldn't even see without her bifocals on tight. It weighed on my conscience and drove me to drink before every auction. When we finally had enough we told them we were through and hopped off the ship in the port of Vancouver, our beloved stomping ground from a year prior. We had lived and worked for a little over 4 months at sea, with little to show in the bank book, but a sense of accomplishment and yet another check of the bucket list.
Just so we're clear; yeah the job was wack, but the experience of living at sea was amazing. Let's get back to that....

The real cherry on top of it all was the infamous 'Crew Bar' that was located only two doors down from our room. If you ever land a job on a cruise ship this is the first place you need to seek out. This bar will always remain in my mind as one of the greatest hangouts I've come across. It was like that mythical tavern, hidden in the core of the earth. You would never believe it existed until you were sitting there having a beer with the Mole Man.
The Crew Bar was very small and unique, with only eight stools and a few couches, but it had an atmosphere that killed. Every time we walked in there life would cut to slow motion and the music from the juke box on the wall would become ominous. Of course, every good bar needs a character bartender and this was no exception. His real name was Jahroo and he looked, as Charlie put it, like an Indonesian Brad Pitt. Dude had style. He didn't speak much English at all, but damn it, he tried. He laughed at everyones' jokes regardless, and he remembered everyone's usual drinks, shots and limits.
The location of the bar was at the front (excuse me, the 'bow') of the boat, with small circular windows and that heavy, metal door with a wheel that you had to crank open like a bank vault. Upon stepping outside, the view of the infinite ocean was enough to make you believe in everything you'd ever doubted. And yes, at the tip of the bow, we looked down, saw the strength of the ship cutting through the waves and proceeded to re-enact the shit out of that cheesy scene from Titanic. You know the one.

The more I write about these untouchable moments shared with Charlie Lovebottumz, the more I realize that I'm sabotaging any chance to be with anyone else. But I can't help it. The more words that hit the page, the deeper I go into the memories. And maybe there's some unconscious madness to this. No girl with any interest in me would want to read this. But this is my history, and I cherish it like the air I breath.

16 stitches ( recorded on tape as a 'note to self', then written in classier form

Let the incriminating record show that I had a dodgy feeling about the island of Pha Nyang from the very beginning. It wasn't that I didn't trust it exactly, but rather, I didn't trust myself there, amongst it's many lenient temptations. Added to which I was, and still am going through some emotional shit, having with-drawl problems from not having a beautiful woman at my side anymore. I suspected that I would go a bit mental after Charlie left, but I was able to suppress a lot of that anguish with marijuana and Sam Cooke. Even in Bangkok, running around, drinking steadily with Jonny Lupa, I was able to keep my wits about me, and the writing flowed like healthy piss. But Bangkok has a flavor much like Toronto. One can only chew on it for so long, before severe restlessness takes hold. And after a week of taxi cabs across town/duckin' in and out of hotels and pools/ allergic rashes to shellfish/ some bad whiskey we were on our way to the island to celebrate the third Anniversary long weekend - dedicated to a fallen brother. We were in for it.

Now that “vacation” is over, I look back and feel a drastic change since I kissed Charlie goodbye for who-knows-how-long-if-ever-again. But it's so hard to balance good from bad at this point. I definitely got my yah-yah's out, in different ways. I knew that I wasn't going to chase tail, and I didn't. I told Charlie that too and she almost looked like she wanted to bet on it (I could use that money right now). Instead I went on a bit of a binge with Loop, got into some trouble, fell through a roof, paid some bribes and then shook some hands. There was also a trip to the hospital for stitches (6 for Jon, 10 for me), and a few hours spent in jail, with a mangy lookin' Thai dude who eventually fell asleep beside the toilet.

We got let out a little after 6AM and made it back to the beach for a fresh breakfast buffet. First dibs on everything. After that it was a straight sleep until noon. Then we rented motorbikes and cruised the day away. That night was the infamous Full Moon Party, from dusk 'till dawn and beyond. We made an off the cuff decision to hit it straight on with no booze or shrooms. It was tricky, but entertaining as a circus of international lunatics. Some good pictures were documented. Then it was back on the boat, and back to that slight resemblance of reality. Back to Chumphon, a day before school started, getting off the bus and walking down the street lookin' like Bebop and Rocksteady.

The experience has woken me up spiritually, and put me to sleep financially. If losing money was an addiction problem and saving money was sobriety than I just relapsed hard. Now I've gotta start workin' on the side to make up for it. And if I don't then I'm just lazy and don't deserve shit. The money is out there. And I know it. There's a goal ahead now. Things are gonna get legitimately busy. Workin' your ass off for yourself and nobody else busy. The kind of busy that doesn't make you tired and cranky at all. Because every hour is another step forward to where you wanna be.

I have no choice really. I gotta pull it all up. And I'm stoked about it.

Write it down, put it up and check it off.  

ABOUT A GIRL (part 1): Two Animals On The Road To Animal Heaven

(NOTE: You know what this is about).

It was on one of our many long bus rides through the vast Kingdom of Thailand that I glanced over at Charlie and had the closest thing to an out-of-body experience that I can shake a stick at. She was oblivious to what was going on as she was staring out the window, deep in thought, with headphones on, perhaps pondering something similar to me. I was locked into an incredible state of flashback and flash-forward, admiring the holy shit out of this girl that had journeyed with me halfway around the world now, for the second time. For a brief couple of minutes, I was able to let myself lose all memory of everything I’ve ever known and then proceeded to gawk like an idiot at this glowing stranger beside me, wondering what the hell she was doing on this bus and how fortunate I was to have landed a seat beside her. “How do I start a meaningful conversation with this girl?” I thought. How did I ever do it in the first place?

I didn't. I was in high-school. I was a different person. I was a puss. She approached me. She made all the moves. All I did was kiss her in the backseat of Braden McCallum's VW Rabbit. All things considered, I wouldn't be who and where I am today if she hadn't taken a chance on me, not once, but twice. The second time, I was hooked.

(NOTE: Prior to falling on my ass, absolutely drunk on love, in my many years of being a single dude I had created my personal version of a “dream girl” in my head. The perfect specimen, complete with the works of witty intelligence, deep personality and spiritual enough to believe in omens and above all - understand me, or at least try to. Physical appearance goes without saying).

Suddenly, I snapped out of my daze and realized where I was and who I was with. Somehow, in the blur of my early twenties, I had found this dream girl from the past and we had launched into orbit almost instantly. We never really slowed down too much to worry about anything else after that.

(NOTE: This next bit is purely therapeutic writing for yours truely. No apologies).

In the dynamic history of myself and this girl I came to refer to as Charlie there was only one brief, yet severe period of “rockiness”during our last summer in Ontario. Ironically, I believe it was a necessary interlude that pushed us forward to where we are now. But at the time, it was straight up brutality. It took place in 10 minutes of one day. I heard things I thought I’d never hear and said things I hoped I’d never say, but everything seemed to come out like it was already written to happen, the same way that people meet serendipitously. The same cool way we originally met. Except in this event it was the opposite of anything cool. It was devastating and disappointing for both of us. Somehow we seemed to run out of breath without raising our voices so we took it outside and walked it off together, with funny bullet points and short bursts of laughter, which normally signified that the battle was over, and the weapons were thrown down. But this time it was just a TV time out for food and a couple drinks before we suited up to butt heads again. This carried on for about two days. There was even a very clichéd moment of callousness that took place at a bus shelter in the rain. It was then that I realized that the true focus of an argument isn’t about who’s right or wrong. It’s about the struggle for both people to understand both points of view, to reach a resolution. It’s not about scoring points by bringing up past mistakes. It’s not about silencing the other person, and it’s not about saying hurtful shit. It’s about building a bridge and getting over it together. Why is that so easy to forget when things get heated?

Then....

“Sunday morning coming down and we still haven’t talked on reasonable grounds yet. I’m waiting for you to wake up completely. Never in my entire life did I ever think I was gonna be that guy sleeping on the fucking couch. I’m pretty sure that it’s impossible to make a smooth transition into moving out, but I’ll do whatever I can to help you believe that this is the best move for me to make right now and that if we keep reminding ourselves what we’re doing this for than everything that we're missing will come back. All of it….

I wanna miss you again, get stoked with you again, journey with you again, get crazy in public places again, yell out “ I love you” again. Do it all again n’ again and forever.”

- written on the back of one of her “to do lists”

Despite the gloomy overcast, it never rained on the crowd the night The Tragically Hip played Harris Park, but Charlie n’ I had the darkest of clouds over us and not even the music could help. What the fuck was happening? We got willingly separated until after the show, then found ourselves leaning on the sidewall of a bodega on Riverside, laying down all the bad cards we’d been holding, trying our hardest to figure out if we were coming to a conclusion or an ending. It was as though we were the last man and woman on earth, that night. The world was eerily silent.

Then the morning came and she was still there.

She said “I still love you.” I said the same.

Then I left for work.

Then she left for Chicago. Lollapalooza.

We both had a long 7 days to shake it off and get our shit together. I never wanted to get outta the relationship, I just wanted to get outta town for good, with her. I was ready to tell her this and she came back with the same idea, along with a beautiful tattoo in a beautiful spot and suddenly everything was fresh again and our minds were open wide. There was no explanation for what went wrong, what had nearly caused us to split and walk away from 5 years of beautiful unity. Something had sparked a fear in us, that threatened our confidence of sharing an ideal life together. We both felt it, but we couldn’t identify it, so we butted heads like dumb beasts. My theory is that we suddenly became bombarded with the big questions of how, when, where and why were we going to spend a life together? Neither of has had found a career, or even really set foot on a steady career path, so how could we even begin to contemplate any thoughts of a family, a house, and everything else that falls under my definition of “settling down.”

But the dust had cleared, and it became excruciatingly obvious that we were nowhere close to settling down for any reason. Thank the Sun, Moon & Stars! We were as restless as kids on a rainy day, but at least we had found an answer. We loved each other enough to roll with the punches. We got wild, like Van City all over again. Then everything else followed and we were back in the business of living out our dreams. Teaming up and conspiring, making lists, saving money, selling everything we didn’t need, staying up too late, getting up too early and feeling great about it because we shared one mutual goal: Get busy travelin’ again.

By October of 2009 we were on the other side, a million miles away from a typical North-American life. Still, a million miles away from a final destination –still many years away from getting it all figured out and settling down and I was glad. We braved a serious shit storm of un-necessary conformity and came out together and tanned in Thailand.

Now, a year has passed, and Charlie is on that bus again, traveling through Thailand, en route to the airport. The seat beside her is empty. I remain here, in the south of Thailand- teaching, writing, building up for something I still can't totally see, but I can feel. Charlie is on her way to Australia, to begin an interesting job at a Road House in the deep outback of the country. As she gets closer and closer to the new destination and the new chapter in her life, I get closer and closer to finishing this piece of writing. But I know that I will never completely close the book on the 6 years, 4 chapters, and the majority of my tenacious twenties, that I shared with Lindsey Ann Furlonger. On the contrary, if anything, I've only just begun writing the reflections of this muse that will continue to inspire me from afar.

(NOTE: Watch Forest Gump. Charlie is my Jenny).

The Everyday War

Everybody's workin'. Everybody's getting married. Everybody's "free"

It's getting hard to remain the same anymore

but it's so good to see that those dreams aren't so far away. 

One day I may wake up to find the right things are in reach 

I'll buy my self a new suit and revel in the rain. 

Well I'm sorry that I'm unsafe

and I'm sorry that I'm still blind.

Don't quarrel with the everyday war

because it's a fight we don't need to win

Never felt so individual before

Still I'm lost in my ways

without a time and place.

Well I'm sorry that I'm so unsafe

and I'm sorry that I feel I'm so right.

What about today?

What about me?

Don't let it fade. 

Though, you may doubt me

Don't let it fade.

Fast June Blues (part 2)

The weekend that the four-winged acapela bugs hit Chumphon was a long weekend. The 28^th day of May was a highly regarded buddhist holiday known as “Viseka Day” which happened to fall on a Friday. Good news for everyone, except for the fact that this was the one true day you were not supposed to drink alcohol in Thailand. As fate would have it, this exact Friday was the day that myself and my new-found friends happened to run out of ganja stash. Big deal. I took a stroll around the lot with the Ruca dog and picked about thirty leaves from the kratom tree; a sacred, mysterious Thai herb that either puts you up in the breeze or down on your knees. It hasn't failed me yet.

I boiled some water and steeped all of em' on low heat. That was the usual procedure. But then I followed a newly suggested recipe and cooled the brew off before adding a bottle of M150, the reddest of the bulls. I mixed it with ice, poured the potent batch into a bucket and started pulling off it from a straw. The recipe was recommended just the previous night by a fellow teacher named Kentucky Jay. Still haven't figured this cat out yet, but he's good. About as American as they come, but every word he says is funny 'cause of his Kentucky accent. Jay is the head teacher at another school here in Chumphon. He has killed many people, and talks about his days as a sniper without mentioning any gory details. “It was a job, like any other.” He says. Then he changes the subject and talks about some crazy shit he saw on YouTube. Fair enough.

There is now a solid collection of characters to bring into this ongoing saga of mine. Some of these people I'm certain I was destined to meet up with. Others I know are here strictly for the sake of entertainment and good writing. All are welcome.

My closest new friends are an Australian named Dan Z., who I met on a long ass bus trip to the country of Laos. We were both travelling alone at the time, and after a bit of basic chit-chat I learned that he was inevitably bound for Chumphon, to teach at the high-school about fifteen minutes away from where I live. We met up with another Aussie, a lady named Jo at the Thai Embassy, who turned out to be a real wild card. I would have guessed she was in her 40's but it turned out she was pushing on 60. The three of us found a great hotel off the main drag of Vientian and shared an honest couple of days doing nothing but eating and drinking, while pouring out our life stories for each other. It's funny how you can open up to a complete stranger easier than you could ever say anything to your own family. We let it all hang out, and it felt great. Turns out, Dan was once a married man, living in Babylon, as he puts it. Wearing the same clothes, and living the same life as everybody else. But something wasn't right. So he and the wife called it quits and Dan fled to India, specifically to a place called Goa, where he lived in a community of music, psychedelic drugs, hugs and freedom of everything. It drew all walks of life from all corners of the world, all with one intention; re-discovery of self. After nearly a year, the money ran out and it was time to move on. Dan, the man. One hell of a neighbour, he's turning out to be. From married life to pure freedom to shooting zombies at the local arcade with yours truly. 

Subsequently, after getting back from Laos, Dan and I hopped on a bus headed to an English Teachers seminar at a 5-star resort located on the River Quai (we never saw the bridge). It was there that we met a variable plethora of travelling teachers like ourselves from the farthest reaches of the globe. A lot of South Africans at this event. A lot goin' on. Just like high-school, everyone broke off into their temporary cliques. Dan n' I bounced around from group to group, taking it all in and checking it all out. The seminar would end everyday at 5:00pm, followed by an onslaught of foreigners walking off the resort to purchase cheaply priced alcohol at a store, conveniently located at the gates of the resort compound (some might call it a convenient store). It was during one of these after seminar parties that I walked into the room of Paul Zuckerman and Thomas Busk, perhaps two of the oldest dudes at the event. Originally I was drawn in by “a simple twist of fate” echoing off the acoustic guitar being played by Thomas. He had a musical background beyond anybody I had ever met in a hotel. After jamming with the Greatful Dead in the last few years of Jerry Garcia's life, Thomas went on to play with George Clinton and the P-Funk All-stars before moving to Malaysia to pursue a career in studying Taoism and eventually falling into a gig as an English teacher to stay a float. Thomas could cover damn near anything, but with his own slow spin on it that made it his. While he played, Paul n' I bonded on conversations about favorite writers, Dylan songs, movies and beliefs. It wasn't until a week later that I got back to the home base in Chumphon when I received a message from Paul saying that he was coming to town to teach at the same school as Dan. He needed a place to live. I happened to know of a vacant house on the good ol' lot that I call home. Now “the lot” is full on commune living style, with Dan Z and Paul Z, Charlie, Me and of course, a pant-load of meaningful characters that continue to come out of nowhere and make me believe that life is brilliant. We'll never be able to compete with it's divine comedy. So the best thing to do is laugh and make the best out of every card you get dealt. To find enjoyment in the 4 of spades, and all those other rags.

Anyway like I was saying, it was during this 3 day blessing of a weekend that Dan's good Finnish friend, Meeka came to town. He arrived on the Friday night and it became instantly clear that Meeka liked to party. A good crew of us put in some quality hours on the most inviting porch I've sat on in many years (maybe the greatest, but it's early still). It all started like rain....one, two, four, seven, twenty, eighty-nine, downpour! But it was bugs. The wrath. Swarming around the light above us in a building funnel cloud. Kinda gross at first, but somehow it became fucking amazing. I jumped up on the table and put my head in the vortex of acapela bugs and their accelerated wings. It was like wearing a 360 degree fan helmet. Ever seen one of those? I don't think they exist.  

There was no chance of knowing it then but Meeka was a goddamn tornado himself. We use the word “crazy” in many ways these days. Meeka represented it very well. He was bad crazy in the sense that he was very socio-pathic, with no filter or respect for thai culture, or any other culture for that matter. We all liked the guy a lot, but within a few short weeks he became hard to associate with. Aside from the little things, like riding a motorbike in his bare feet and wearing not much more than tattered underwear, he would approach us at the best of times, when the Thai family was around, and he would say shit like “ Ok, I'm gonna go and smoke 'dis joint with da whores in da whore house now.”

Aw yes, and the hand. That's his own crafty work, performed with a pair of scissors after he shot a cocktail of sedatives and bad junk into his arm. As Meeka tells it, he had to do it himself or he would have lost his whole arm. I'm not makin' this up and I'm pretty sure he isn't either. Life writes it's own stories. We play the part we're given as best as we can. 

The crazy part that I appreciated about Meeka was that he was one of those cats that was up for anything, and possessed a very intellectual mind hidden within his brutish exterior. He had seen his share of things and worked his share of jobs. Apparently a 7 year drug addict can land some pretty interesting gigs in Finland. The two most notables he mentioned were working for Sony and a division of the city morgue that performed full body autopsies. Meeka was the guy that opened up the body cavity and the skull. With no official experience, they supplied him with a shelf full of horrific looking tools and put him in front of a corpse. He described how exploring the inside of the human body was like being in outer space or the unknown depths of the sea. I didn't doubt that he had likely been to both. Eventually I was going to ask about all the circular scars that riddled his body, but he beat me to it. I find it hard to believe that this guy was ever what we'd call a “normal guy” but apparently there was a point in his life when he was normal enough. Engaged to be married, in love with life, writing poetry etc. Then one day, after an examination for some pain in his chest, he was told by the hospital that he had a rare and rapidly fatal form of cancer and had roughly a year to live.

Most people have some sort of half-ass answer for this scenario, and most of the time it involves travelling to somewhere they've always wanted to go. But for Meeka, the answer wasn't about going anywhere, it was about doing something he'd always wanted to try; heroin.

So with a 12 month countdown 'till the end, he did some research, made some calls to the wrong people, went out and purchased a heroin kit and got into the drug like it was a fuckin' stamp collection.

It didn't take long to wear the badge of a junky, and before he knew it, two things had happened. He had used heroin so much that he was running out of good veins to shoot into, and paradoxically, a year had come and gone since he had been diagnosed. Then another year went by. And another. The cancer was never there, it was a misdiagnosis in favour of the patient. How lucky and stupid can you be at the same time? This sets the bar pretty high. Now Meeka was going to die, but not from cancer.

It's been almost 10 years since the fluke, and having known this character for only a few weeks now, I would confidently (or unconfidently) wager that Meeka's time is almost up. There's a lot to support this theory including, riding around on the motorcycle, drunker than shit, no shirt, no shoes, of course no helmet, eventually crashing it and ripping apart half his foot, fooling around with married Thai woman, and somehow managing to break damn near everything he touched. Some people are accident prone, others make their own trouble, the rest of us just try to stay the hell out of the way. Meeka has now been missing for 2 days. Whatever happens to this cat will not surprise me at all.

It's almost July now, and if the world starts turning any faster I think I'm gonna chuck. Some questions have been answered, some decisions have been made, some money has been saved. As always, more questions have arisen, more motivation is needed, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

But to contradict all that shit I just wrote, I've also realized how different my life really is now, more than it's ever been. I never thought I'd be a serious English teacher, but it really is an amazing gig. I'm exerting energy in a way I never have before with any job I've had, and when it's done right, it comes back. I dig it for the challenge of doing something that I never pictured myself doing. At the same time, the living is easy, the food is amazing and the time for writing, reading, learning guitar and building on a future is all here, if I can just stay focused. It's hard to do all these things at once, but it's a hell of a lot better than being “busy” doing redundant shit that gets you nowhere but tired. As long as the all encompassing good stuff doesn't stop, I'll be more than fine.