Trust? Empathy & Promises Broken...Coca-Cola a Staple Food for the Homeless...

TRUST, TRUST, TRUST…

I’ve been brooding on this word and its grand meaning ever since I set foot in Argentina, perhaps even longer.

According to Wikipedia, Trust is a personal prediction of reliance, in something… The degree to which one person trusts another as a measure of belief in the honesty, benevolence and competence of the other person.

Trust is a moral value most of us consider a virtue. We place our Trust in people and things with the hope our trust will not be betrayed. Each day we prove and test our notions of trustworthiness through our responsibilities and expectations.

So where is this virtuous gibberish leading?

Well… the South American journey is over now; it ended last Saturday with all the grace and meaning of a fixed card game that promised a million dollar pot but turned out to be untrue.

There was a weird, painful stench of dissapointment that followed me around on this journey. A dark and personalized stench that I didn’t recognize in the beginning when I wrote in the Authors Note, “ This trip 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!”

Indeed. In hindsight, it was an ugly thing to write. Now, it is a monument to everything I experienced and encountered over the last few months in this strange world we have built for ourselves in the name of words like “democracy, progress, equality, justice, mercy” and on a personal level “love, truth and trust.”

There were good times on this journey, don’t get me wrong. Many majestic places visited, friendships made, laughs shared and love found and lost in the sunset. But the darker, mostly ignored, side of society got the best of those good feelings…

Take the the homeless Bolivian man I watched hustling in an upscale Mendoza neighbourhood for pesos to feed his wife and three young children, only to be turned down again-and-again by rich folk in shiny $100k cars. And when he finally had enough pesos – saved-up from his nightly routine of reserving parking spots in front of an up-scale restaurant – he took that money and dissapeared into a nearby store coming out a few minutes later with a bottle of Coca-Cola for his family. Yes sir, folks… that was the family dinner for that night.

In retrospect I think that moment was the beginning of the end of my stay in Argentina.

My thoughts brought me back to the word Trust and what this man’s relationship was with that foul word. Who did he have to confide such a word in? The government? The church? The rich folk who sneered at him nighlty? Does he expect them to understand? No. But for his wife and kids it was obvious. He was thier meaning of the word Trust. Trust was his responsibility.

For most people in Argentina, and the world, (myself included) there is a deep and largly unrecognized need to overcome, at all cost, what ever it might be that oppresses us. Fair enough, we all have our own cause and meaning by which we live. But in today’s world it has become ever-more present that in our grapling to reach the so-called summit, we are leaving a path of destruction and broken promises.

On any given morning, in any given city, both the rich and the poor can be sure that by the noon-time the inescapable realities of their calling will have forced them to do something they would rather not have to explain, not even to themselves. The details will vary, but the essential need never changes. “ We don’t have a choice,” I heard both rich and poor say. “Society has made me what I am.”

This is a sad fact of living in any South American or 2nd , 3rd or developing country for any length of time, and some of my readers might agree, that these places have a tendency to twist the idealism and faith of Westeners who have been living far too comfortable lives in their own countries.

The simple,dumb truth is that as a Westener – armed with puritan pragmatism learned in universities and discussed in coffee shops – you realize very qucikly that you are in a country with different traditions and a different outlook on life.

It is an odd feeling being back in Toronto and reading the Star and Globe about World events. The problems, the issues and solutions suddenly become quite clear from the comfort of my home. Ha Ha Ha don’t they?

Looking back on the Homeless Man Hustle for survival in Mendoza, it is easy to see him as a beggar and cockroach of society. I recall how normal it was at the time for passersby and rich folk to sneer at him. I wouldn’t have been surprised if a group of rich-folk decided to surround him and step on him like a cockroach as his family watched… I wouldn’t have been surprised at all…

After all, society has made us what we are… Trust in that.

Mucho Gracias to all who read my ramblings and emails of concern over the state of my emotional well-being... Mucho Gracias...


For those of you wondering…I never went against the conventional wisdom that preaches not to give money to beggars. The homeless Bolivian man never asked me for a peso. But I saw myself in this man, his position in society, his desperation, his will, his faith in goodness, his need for compassion, empathy, simply….a Lousy Fucking break… So I offered him and his family a meal at the restaurant he hustled in front of each night. It wasn’t a solution, but for one night in this family’s life they could rest assure their faith in the word Trust.

Watch out! The Shepperd has Something behind his Back... A Profound Question for the 21st Century

Hi Folks... I´m still in Argentina, my name is still Brendan and I´ve been away on a top secret mission, for an organization you all know but I can´t mention here for reasons of national security, but you get my drift, right? Right!

I apologize. And that is why I haven´t been writing much in the last few weeks...

Indeed I would like to write about the majestic treks and local cuisine I´ve experienced over the last few weeks, but I can´t. I´m not that type of travel writer. I learned this and many other things on my recent assignment to the North of Argentina, where I indulged in the local lifestyles of both the haves and have nots.

On this adventure I spoke extensively with policemen and women, misfits, business-men, clergy, farmers, community leaders and the homeless and forgotten, and all told me of their ills and dreams...´

But all shared the same concern about our world. How the world and local situation has has become so nervous and wrong these days that they feel like oppressed sheep who belong to a Shepperd who can no longer be trusted as he is holding a sharp, shiny knife behind his back that he tells you is for the wolves, but everyone trembles as the shadow of that long sharp knife casts its doubt and fear across the land...

Trouble can come at you from any direction these days, like being chased by a group of armed men shouting in a strange language, knowing they want to kill you, but not knowing why-- or being run over by a car, left for dead, when you are already broke and homeless...But that´s for another time and another story and it doesn´t really fit here.

Yes sir, this is what living in the 21st century is all about for billions...Not knowing why. It´s no different from living, in say, America or Iraq for that matter. Things are not that different from town-to-town in today´s world. The Shepperd is taking well care of his flock, or so he says...

We have all been here before, some born into it, some at the controls ... We all know the rules of the game. It´s fleece or be fleeced! Which reminds me. It would not be fair at this point to continue this thorny rambling without confessing that I also have been effected by the world situation.

My laptop crashed last week and I was told it would cost over $1000 Big Ones to recover my information. See what I mean folks, about this World Situation gone all awry. I´am being fleeced by Greedy Computer Geeks who role in Benzes and discuss the latest processor chip over Monday morning´s coffee break. Those Bastards! Life is Cruel.

Right, and so much for that, eh... I should lighten up with the preaching. After all I am talking to friends here.

But this is nothing, compared to the Monster like things that played out in front of me, and at times with me, this week. That is elementary Mr. B...My computer problems may dominate my mind, but nobody south of the Rio Grande seems to care. The contrast is like day and night. Right. And so much for that psychodrama gibberish, eh?

Let´s get back to the real reason I rant and rave here...

¨Why cant I travel like the rest of these tourist zombies and just forget about how cruel the world is?¨

I can´t. The forces that are inside me won´t let me turn-away from the world around me. I´m the sensitive type, a romantic by nature and I´ve got a highly addictive personality to go with that. Things are never dull for me. And these days the world isn´t looking so pretty, even for a rich Gringo like myself...

Ah, but we are running out of time here before my bus leaves for the south, folks. I must get to Bahia Blanca and spend some time with a fiery Argentinean woman. It is guaranteed to be a volatile visit, for sure... Ha ha. That´s it for now. Mucho Gracias and remember to watch your back because the Shepperd is always watching his flock.

It's the End of the World & that's When it Mattered Most...

“The dogs on Main Street howl cause they understand that I could take one moment into my hands…“
-B. Springsteen


So it’s another week come-and-gone and we’ve all found ourselves a bit farther into the journey… Some of us may have drifted a bit too far from the shore this week; perhaps into darkness, on a wave too big to handle like the long-arm-of-the-law or possibly in a secret thought. Maybe on one of those long 9-5 days, where your mind slips in-and-out of a dream as you stare at the computer screen dreaming yourself in some foreign land, speaking a different language, living a life you saw in some Saturday afternoon movie, smuggling contraband over a border in the dead of night. Who knows? But pretty soon someone or something is going to take charge of those thoughts. Right? Enchallah.

Ahh…But never mind those things... Some of us have been busy risking it all this week, spending the weekly pay-packet on that dirty, yet beautiful, whore who shares the same unmade bed as Desire and Lust – Experience.

Thank you to all those who’ve followed all my gibberish or just hit the link and closed the page…Bueno!

Yours truly spent the last part of this week at the “End of the World”, Fin de la Mundo”, in Ushuaia, Argentina, where outdoor enthusiasts pay big-bucks to try and find the best in themselves in waist-deep freshwater streams, but end up catching only lousy 10-ounce trout which they tell the folks back home was three-heavyweight-fighting pounds of endurance. Yes Sir that's what Life must be about...

Fittingly, I never considered myself an outdoor-enthusiast who put his faith in an ability to harness nature with $500 fishing gear or the latest North-Face jacket. Those are powers well beyond my comprehension, decisions I leave for rank-and-file marketing executives who sit in fancy offices, on some high-floor of some big-city tower, with a majestic view of the World and all its answers... It’s not my view folks, not my world…

Yes Sir I'm full of rash commentary this week...

Behind all that expensive camouflage, Mother Nature is a fine upstanding lady, believe me folks. I’ve been in her arms many a time. The warmth of her kind is rare and always picturesque. She taught me most of what I know about life, form and the moment of living in the meantime.

So to get to the point… I climbed another mountain today, literally. But not to the top, just three-quarters of the way. My shortcoming was a small Glacier known as “Martial”, that reminded me once again that running shoes on icy mountains are like Whiskey and Apple Pie after Sunday night’s dinner. They don’t make for a happy Monday morning. Do they?

But it’s easy to get carried away when you’re licking a sweet, sticky stick of honey dew… Isn’t it? You know what I’m talkin’ about. But the creature that I am knows where I stand. In one hand holds a hammer, in the other a torch. With one I’ve built with the other… Well you get the point as we’ve all been there…

What I learned today… Sometimes I find reasons other times I fall short. It’s like Venus waking up and finding that the Sun is gone, like winter not having a reason to end, like me knowing all the answers…

And that’s what I learned today.

I’m still learning…

BTD

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…