Marching Right Along Part 1

On the taxi ride back from the resort to the airport, my Mexican cabbie, Servicio, wanted to get chatty.  I'm not sure if it's because a) he was just naturally friendly, b) found silence awkward and thus terrifying or c) figured it might beef up the tip.  Probably all three.  As I was pretty worn out with mankind at that point, I'd have paid more for silence, but I played along.

Somehow, we got to the point where I told him I vivo-ed en Afghanistan.  Considering my Espanol is embryonic, I couldn't think of much to say.  I figured I'd tell him that the people there were sorta moreno pero con ojos verdes o azules.  He then clarified they were not brown like him.  Then, he asked if they were Catholic.

I often mock/embrace American centered-ness.  "America!", I'll randomly scream. 

That being said, I was actually shocked that the Mexican cabbie didn't know anything, whatsoever, about the country los Estados Unidos has been at war in for the past decade, particularly with his shuttling around American tourists.  I get that the American tourists that go to Cancun aren't watching MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour, but still.

"No," I explained, "they are not."

Then I said "Ellos son Muslim."

Nothing.

"Islam."

He said, "Israel?"

"Muhammed?" I threw out there.

My high school Spanish class did not prepare me to teach Islamic theology to Mayan cabbies.

"No. No Jesus.  No Maria.  Solamente uno Dio.  El nombre de el dio de Islam es 'Allah.'"

That fairly blew his mind and I'm pretty sure he assumed that I was getting it all wrong because I don't speak Spanish, because how in the mundo bueno verde can there be no Maria o Jesus? 

He changed the subject to the women there.  He asked if they were all covered.  That made me think he'd definitely heard of Afghanistan but that he simply couldn't accept that they really didn't believe in Roman Catholicism.

He was still pretty baffled when we got to the airport, but by that point so was I. 

Random Thoughts on Travel-Not PC

1.  Look.  Seriously.  Don't tell me to turn off my iPod because you're afraid it will shut off the multi-million dollar plane's electronics and send us into a nosedive of death.  If my (basically) hard drive with headphones jammed in it that has no broadcast ability is enough to kill us all, then maybe the @$%!ing plane shouldn't have cleared whatever inspections it had to.  The FAA is worthless.  That's what I say.

2.  I love that I have about 200 movies on hand during a flight.  Really, I do.  I love that with the touch of a screen, I can access that.  What I don't love is that when I finally somehow manage to pass out in my tiny little chair and my head bangs forward (which I don't notice because I'm delirious from exhaustion) that I somehow hit the screen and have a flight attendant asking me what I needed because I hit the call button.  There needs to be a 6'2" variable turn off on the touch screen.  That's all I'm saying.

3.  Yes. I have gargantuan feet.  I appreciate that the chairs are now supersized for fat ass Americans.  That's nice.  I was in a row with two big burly lumberjack dudes.  Somehow, our torsos fit in the row.  However, our huge legs/feet did not and I spent most of the flight accidentally tripping any and everyone who walked near me, usually while I was simultaneously (accidentally) headbutting the touch screen and calling a stewardess.

4.  What in the hell is with porno mags in the Atlanta airport?  "Welcome to America! We objectify Women!"  "America! Tits! And Spread Vagina!"  "America! (Attention) Whores!"  Seriously?  I've just gotten off a 16 hour flight and transferred to another flight.  It's not like I just have to see a birth canal or five.  And, hey, I get that not all travelers are transfers, but what the hell is wrong with the guy who showed up at the airport just to buy a porn mag before he got on a flight.  I just can't imagine any scenario where that's a legitimate purchase.  

Brother Dearest

I have an older brother. Sorta.  He's my half-brother.  We consider ourselves full-on brothers.  We don't look much alike.  Anyway, as I tell people, "Long story short: Our dad boned his mom first."

Being eight years older, as a little boy, Evan was a god to me.  He lived with his mother so he'd come to visit one weekend a month and for half a summer and he'd have a little brat aggravating the hell out of him.

Anything Evan did was by far the coolest thing on the planet.  Anything Evan said was by far the smartest or funniest thing anyone said in the history of ever.

When I was six, Pop went on sabbatical to England to finish writing his book on dialectic (don't ask).  So, I went to first grade in England.  Halfway through the year, Evan, then a freshman in high school, came to live with us and did the 2nd half of the year there.  I was in heaven.

Mom recalls the house literally shaking from me running around hassling Evan and us thumping and bumping. Inevitably, being so much younger and smaller, I'd get hurt, or pretend to get hurt and would run crying to her, trying to get him in trouble.  She also recalls the time we were all ready to go somewhere and then Pop realized we were about 15 minutes early so we'd wait and I immediately turned to Evan and said "Great! Wanna fight?!"

Things I adored as a kid:

1. Evan

2. Sugar

3. Toys

4. Gammie

...

67. Mom and Pop.

Anyway, after that half year, we didn't live with each other again, until I was 12.

Evan was 20 then.  He had been off at college.  He dropped out.  He grew his hair long.  He got earrings. He went to a guitar school.  He bought a motorcycle.  He had a girlfriend with really big boobs.  All of that, to a 12 year old, more firmly entrenched Evan as the biggest badass of all time.

(Now, as a 31 year old, while I still kinda think his meltdown was awesome, I find it to be pretty run of the mill)

I was in middle school.  I lived with my brother, the badass.  He had come to live with Pop and me and had entered the local college to get his grades going again so he could transfer back to his original school.  He had a wall of CDs.  In the early 90s, tapes were still dominant, so CDs showed how debonair Evan was.  I was pretty sure he had even actually had sex before.  Thus, more than ever, Evan remained my favoritest person.

Pop was a professor at a military college.  We lived on the campus.  Pop was, and remains to this day, not one to waste a dollar.  If I needed a haircut, he gave me three dollars and sent me to the barbers the cadets went to.

The running joke was this:  A cadet went in to the barbershop and asked Ramey (barber who'd been there for at least forever) for a haircut.  The cadet said, "I want it an inch longer on the right side than on the left.  On the left though, I want you to put three tiers into it and, up top, I want a lightning bolt shaved in."  Ramey looked at the cadet as though he were crazy.  "Cadet," he said, "you know I can't do anything like that."  The cadet replied, "Yes, you can. You did it to me two weeks ago."

That's my way of telling you that I hated getting haircuts. Yay. Great.  I looked like a prisoner/refugee every time I got one.  Middle schoolers are known to be kind and understanding of the misfortunes of others.

I had Evan though.  Evan would save me.

Evan convinced me that there was this awesome new haircut that all the college guys were getting.  I'd be the coolest kid in 7th grade because I'd have a sweet college guy haircut. 

As it was 1992, he was talking about the Mushroom haircut.

(I cringe now)

Best of all, Evan would do it for me so a) it was guaranteed to be perfect and b) I could pocket THREE WHOLE DOLLARS! So what that Evan had never cut hair before?  That didn't faze me in the least.  I hadn't seen him try, but I was fairly certain he could walk on water.

We went in the bathroom.  He wet my hair down and started cutting.  I heard "hmmmm" a lot.  Then I heard "uh oh."  I may have heard an "oops."

I was a trifle concerned.  Evan was super, but then so are brain surgeons and if you ever hear "hmmmmm", "uh oh", and "ooops" from one of them you get worried too.

"Okay, Ajax.  I admit. I didn't get it quite right.  It's a little higher up than the college guys have," my idol calmly explained, "but, it's okay, because none of the other seventh graders will know because none of them will have one."

People hear what they want to hear. That's why I believed him.  He made sure to show me how it looked while my hair was still wet.  He was right.  I didn't know how to tell he'd messed up because I'd never seen a haircut like it before.  From what I could tell I was okay. Also, my badass brother assured me it was okay.

The only problem was that, the next morning when I got dropped off at school, he wasn't there to explain to the other kids (not just 7th graders...pretty much anyone who saw me), how I had a badass college guy haircut (nearly).  They took one look at me and...

...that's the story of how I came to be called "[Penis] Head" for the rest of 7th grade and, therefore, how my brother was no longer my hero.

F.Y.M.

In the brilliant, if admittedly low-budget/low-brow, 1994 film Fear of a Black Hat, writer/director/actor Rusty Cundieff, portraying rapper "Ice Cold", puts forth a concept that I find quite pertinent in a frustrating environment. I shall let him explain (NSFW):

As I've mentioned previously, out here, we have a set amount of b.s. we can handle.  When our Patience Wells fill up, they erupt into B.S. Volcanoes.  The problem is not that this happens.  It happens to all of us so we learn to deal with it.

The problem is that there are people out here who thrive on antagonism and purposely try to get people to go Vesuvial. 

I am currently there, being 8 days from vacation.  I have hit my B.S. Volcano.  I am also dealing with a person who is pushing me well into FYM territory.  I'm being pushed so far, in fact, that I might even be at Jules on "Brain Detail": (Super-Duper NSFW)

Unfortunately, I cannot explain myself thusly. 

I have long made note that when people are depressed or in mental pain they will often purposely self-destruct.  They may not be able to control feeling good.  They may not be able to control that they feel bad, but they can control how they feel bad.  Just to be able to direct themselves, even in a bad way is better than helplessness, uncontrolled misery, or despair.  See also, people who cut themselves.

As I've come here though that has come to light in another way.  We have very strange people who work out in Afghanistan. Yes, I know that I am saying this.  There are people that are stranger than me.  Think about that.

Anyway, some of these strange people, because of their quirks/eccentricities/flat-out-behavioral-disorders are unpopular.  It's not a situation where everyone goes "let's pick on that person" like in grade school, just that the screwed up people can tell no one likes them.  What some of them do, when they see that they can't get people to like them, is that they decide to go the route of deciding how people will dislike them by being raging jerks, stirring controversy, being antagonistic, and harassing and just being wildly unpleasant in general.

The issue is you can get away from people like that in a normal environment. Here, you can't escape. Because you can't escape and you can't make them leave, these people get emboldened, particularly if they are in positions of importance.  They press and press and press and take glee in harassing, filling up their need for acceptance with perverse feelings of power instead.

The problem is, they become myopic and lose sight of the big picture, that, ultimately, while they can get away with such poor behavior for a much longer period of time than in a normal environment, eventually, they will be pulled back to reality and spanked.

The people currently driving me bonkers forgot that they are not, in fact, tyrants, and that the laws of the United States concerning hostile work environment and personal litigation still apply.  It's great that they're in positions of authority over here; that doesn't exempt them from the time-honored maxim of "Don't @$#! with a lawyer."

F.Y.M.