Watch out for Hippies... The World hasn't missed a Beat and Ham Sandwiches in the Woods are good for You...

Since last week’s blog, I’ve been traversing the diverse wilderness of Patagonia, discovering new experiences, thoughts and pondering a feeling about nature and our place in it. Ah but never mind that shite right? For a minute there I was starting to sound like some strung-out new-age-hippy discussing the virtues of nature. But I can’t pretend. I really did believe that this time the world would be a better place upon my return.

This week some big events happened in the world. Russia wants to do more business in Iraq, food prices are soaring worldwide, Bhutan brought down the curtain on a century of absolute monarchy and China finally let the war drums roll on Tibet… Yes sir the world and the statutory business of progression sure didn’t miss a step this week. Did it?


“Won’t someone save the world?”
--Ed Vedder.

I want to take this sentence, and the next, to thank the media for never letting me down, even when I try to escape from all of its senseless confessions and truths about the world. Thank you for reminding me that Vampires still exist casting their shadows on the truth for nothing less than a fistful of $100 bills. Mucho Gracias…

Well… so much for righteousness and big thoughts. By the time I left for Banos de Queni, a small and pristine lake nestled along the Argentine and Chilean border in Lanin National Park, the radio reports –according to the Wall Street Journal – said the Chinese were deploying armed forces to try to stop the biggest protests in almost 20 years spreading beyond the Himalayan region.

I sat staring out the window wondering if the radios of the other cars crackled with this news. Probably not. After all Tibet is worlds away when you are driving 140 km, risking life and limb, to get the best camp site by the lake before the rest of the holiday weekenders arrive. Yes the Long weekend Muskoka frame of mind also exists in Argentina…

Back to business… The mercury has been rising for decades and it was only a matter of time before the Chinese government decided to cure what it regards as a disease impeding on China’s natural right to occupy Tibet. I have a great fondness for Tibet, its spiritual leader his Holiness the Dalai Lama and deep appreciation for its culture and tradition.

The Chinese government says the Dalai Lama is to blame for all this unrest and violence. The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader is attempting to take this summer’s Olympic Games hostage and force China to make concessions on Tibetan independence.

Perhaps China is right about the Dalai Lama’s strategy. Maybe the Dalai Lama is dabbling in some cheap thrills, but I doubt it. Anyone can see through all this PR gibberish spewed out by the Chinese government.

And how is the International Olympic Committee handling this horrible situation it got itself into?

Well… IOC president Jacques Rogge said he is engaged in "silent diplomacy" with China on Tibet and other human rights issues in advance of the Beijing Olympics. Rogge also reiterated his –long-standing position— that the IOC is not a political organization and cannot interfere in the internal affairs of China. But he stressed that he is involved in private dialogue with Chinese leaders and insisted the human rights situation has improved since Beijing got the games seven years ago.

What the hell is Rogge thinking, or is he thinking? The Olympic Games in China are and always have been a political event followed by a sporting event. These games are going to be fun; and whoever is the PR agency-of-Record for the 2008 Olympics, take heed. All the positive publicity in the world cannot erase China’s human rights record. Just ask George Bush about his holiday camp in Cuba.

Speaking about camping, all is not lost. I did have a wonderful experience at Lago Queni. I have lived through 35 summer camping seasons, a few wars and natural disasters but I’ll be dipped in shit if this wasn’t one of the sweetest moments I’ve spent in Argentina or camping for that matter.

I was minding my own business, eating a ham sandwich, when she came along meowing, hungry and overly friendly. After all I was holding a ham sandwich and in this neck of the woods that’s a royal flush Buster! But more than just sharing my only food for the day with this beautiful being, I realized my place in nature and what truly moves me.

If only the leaders of our world could break- bread with each other and realize it’s not about prices or commoditizing and owning everything. It’s about sharing, making that connection with a being and playing the game fair enough so when it’s all said and done we were good to each other.

Sorry I lied. Those hippies got to me…

Thanks to the Associated Press and Bloomberg news for the footnotes on this week’s events and for Queni for reassuring me that outside of wars, the media and ham sandwiches in the woods there is goodness… You were good for me.

Upwardly Mobile in NY and Blissfully Unaware in Bahia Blanca...

I can see Tonta, my newest friend, on the other side of the glass wall -that holds the hand written poem from Giaconda Belli's "Los Portadores de Suenos" - separating me from another Argentinian night and the possible promise it holds. I've been fascinated by her all day. She’s beautiful in her own way. She's her own person, intelligent and care-free in that Betty Davis way, living by her own set-of-rules in a world that is nothing short of Cruel.

Strategically, she eyes her food, making sure the next bite is perfect for chewing. Piece by piece she pulls her food from the pile, finding one she can carefully fill-up on without swallowing too many of the ants crawling over tonight's dinner. In anything short of riot conditions this situation would be an Avant Garde walk in the apple orchard.... A scene made for a World Vision infomercial...

Ah--but this is real-life we are talking about here Buster! Look around you. Things aren’t what they used to be for millions tonight, especially for disgraced New York Governor Elliot Spitzer. Yes sir, it's time for the once sanctimonious crusader of Wall St. to face the same firing squad that he once sent many a mover and shaker who didn't play the game by the rules. In the political spectrum March is always a good time to say you're leaving town. I would feel very nervous right now if I was in Spitzers inner circle.

Muhammad Ali once said that "There are no jokes. The truth is the funniest joke of all."

Where the fuck did Spitzer think he was, in some back-woods political scene? Not only that, he was brazenly spending thousands of dollars on a call-girls in some fancy Washington hotel on the night before Valentine’s Day.

Among the possible charges that the former Sheriff of Wall St faces: soliciting and paying for sex; violating the Mann Act, the 1910 federal law that makes it a crime to take someone across state lines for immoral purposes; and illegally arranging cash transactions to conceal their purpose.

Perhaps Spitzer got bored of the clean-cut lifestyle and decided to drift over the edge for some cheap thrills...

When I first read the headlines, my own reaction was bafflement and hysterical laughter. The more I brooded on it, the more I reaffirmed my belief that his fate was sealed a long time ago when he romantically thought he could clean up Wall St., make a name for himself among the big boys and get away without retribution. The media, at the time, were whores to Spitzer's circus of persecution. Today the table has turned. Spitzer is no longer the Ringmaster and the media will make him March’s whipping boy. And why not?

Politics is the only true blood sport in the world and when that time arrives for you to decide that you're big enough to eat whatever you like and from whomever’s dinner plate... Well, let's face it. That is when the joke is over Buster because the cook will poison your dinner.

It was not the vice but the binge that dealt the death blow. After all Spitzer had his own nonsensical set-of-rules for living and another set for the rest of us. So really it’s just a matter of good old fashioned Karma, which makes this whole event kind of special, like stumbling onto the heart of a Saturday night when you don't remember what day it is.

The inevitability of these real-life nightmares happening to the rich and powerful is what makes them so reassuring to the rest of us, including Tonta. Life will go on for us, for good or ill. But some things are forever right? In time Spitzer will fade into obscurity and his legacy will go down as another righteous man corrupted by his own moral undoing. Perhaps if Spitzer read Giaconda Belli, he might have known what the rest of us have always known... What separates them and us?

It's not just Spitzer that got exposed this week, but once again the whole rotten corrupt and fraudulent political scene. The ugly truth is that this same nightmarish mess could happen anywhere in the world, and the result would be the same.

So to get to the heart of the matter concerning tonight’s blog…Tonta and Spitzer have much in common. Both are care-free, independent, highly intelligent, strategic and living by their own set-of-rules. And last but not least, if you gave them both a bone, they'd be your best friends forever... But only one you could really trust to call your friend… If we all took the time to open our minds we could learn from man’s best friend. Perhaps that’s what Spitzer needed…

Author's Note

Dawn is coming up in Toronto now: 5:30 A.M. I can hear the rumble of the early morning traffic outside my window and the chirps of a hundred starlings waiting for their morning feed. The big-city engine is starting to rev and any minute now the masses will be in teeth-grinding frenzy as everyone and everything is getting ready for the race to begin...

In any given city, on any given day, you can find hundreds-of-thousands of people scurrying here and there, desperate to get ahead, to make it on time, to meet whatever deadline that hangs over their head. Perhaps there is a comfortable kind of consistency, some sort of solace, found in the daily Rat Race. Any $200-an-hour psychiatrist could probably explain this to me, in eight or nine sessions, but I don't have time for that.

I have spent enough time in the Rat Race to know that most nine-to-fivers lead pretty dull lives. They are bored with their daily routines: wake, shit, eat, work, sleep and fuck every now and then. It's no wonder some of them drift over the edge into cheap thrills once in awhile: Vegas, cards, hookers, drugs and of course adventure travel. There has to be a powerful adrenalin rush in breaking the dull existence these zombies call living.

Why not? Anything that gets the heart pumping like a locomotive is good for the reflexes and keeps the cholesterol down... but too many adrenalin rushes are addictive and it's only a matter of time before the zombie starts raving and babbling in a blog about things that only a person who has been there can possibly understand.

Some of the gibberish in this blog will not make sense to anybody except the people who have been over that proverbial edge. Living by your own set-of-rules has its own language, which is often so complex that it borders on a secret code. The trick is learning how to translate - to make sense so the readers will stay in tune.

The point I meant to make here - before we wandered off on a tangent about zombies and adrenalin- is that everything in this blog will be written about my travels and experiences in South America. A trip that might be so confusing and unpredictable that even I might not know what is happening. But what the Hell? Life is full of those moments. Right? Right!