This poem is so long, 1,300 words, that I'll break it up into smaller doses. I couldn't help it, lots of stuff happened that year.
1968
The year got off to a shaky start for me,
I was in Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego,
The Navy was deciding if I was worth keeping,
I had three years to go, I was not indifferent
To the outcome of their process.
They gave me an Honorable Discharge,
Administrative Separation, very easy,
I went home, not too humiliated,
Mostly happy not to be on gunboats in the Delta,
Or juggling napalm bombs on a carrier in a storm.
I was off the war news by then,
So I missed a lot of the details
Of the Tet Offensive, as it was happening,
Proving my point, as it turned out,
That there was more to war than winning and losing,
And sometimes, like this time,
Not-Losing will trump Winning.
I had no credentials, though,
I was in no way academic,
Explaining this to Naval officers,
I had only the arrogance of youth,
And a vulgar manner and accent,
But I was right, after all.
They looked on me as a cancer, and cut me out.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Pattaya Pix
Is it just me, or does this woman look just like Martha Stewart? She's never heard of Martha Stewart by the way.
So many Russians go to Pattaya, and I hardly ever see them anywhere else. They love the beach and the packages must be cheap, there are so many hotels.
Would any Thai party be complete without a wide assortment of beautiful women? This group ranges from nineteen to sixty four years old. The young woman on the left is Muslim, Thai muslims are so happy and they wear the religion so lightly, they could really show the Middle East a thing or two.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Pattaya One: The Prequel
I am going to Pattaya tomorrow, where I am assured that everything will be free. The university is taking us down on buses. Many departments, if not all, are going somewhere nice, Biology is going to Cha Am, I’ve been, it’s nice. There will be seminars to endure, but since they will be presented in Thai no one expects me to attend. We have a nice hotel lined up, right on the beach, almost certainly ESPN and Star Sports, watch a little Australian Football, those guys are nuts, maybe the basketball playoffs have started. How would I know?
In the midst of this, I found myself considering my education, nothing to do with anything but that’s how I do things. Today I was reading some of the thoughts of one of the great thinkers of the Twentieth Century, Buckminster Fuller. He spent considerable time mocking contemporary attempts at education. Counterproductive, etc. Teaching kids to think in squares when everybody knows the real wisdom is found in tetrahedrons. He’s a trip, that’s for sure.
In a moment of supreme self-flattery, I wondered if I had intuited just the same conclusion that he had reached semi-academically: I certainly stopped trusting contemporary education, where it came to educating me, at a point fairly early in my academic career. Really, I think in my case a deep, well reasoned hostility to authority was the cause of my disengagement from conventional education. One way or the other, in the seventh grade I gave up on those people and set off to educate myself. Not in so many words, but I was genuinely, feverishly interested in so many things that the result was a great deal of reading and inquiry. Through four years of high school, I co-operated not at all, read nothing that was assigned, copied all of the homework, only half listened in class since I had to be there anyway and counted on what I’d heard to take me through the tests. I passed everything and graduated: in my class of 291 students I was number 271. I have always been proud of that. In that four years I had learned a lot more than almost anybody in my class. I’d become a good chess player too. You don’t have to believe me, I have nothing to prove to you or anybody else. Not intellectually, those facts speak for themselves.
Later I got myself a good conventional education, BA at thirty-five and JD at forty-three. What does it all mean? Nothing, I suppose.
But now Pattaya, on Ramkhamhaeng’s nickel, should be fun, good seafood, nice steamed sea bass with chili-lime flavoring, some nam-geem, mmmm. Pattaya is a zoo, I’d never go there just because I wanted to. Lots of Russian tourists staggering around drunk with horrible sunburns, a large beer bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other, pulling at girls clothes as they go, laughing grotesquely, in stupid outfits. Not my scene. Lots of desperate young women inviting you to “have a drink,” and “relax.” What else is there to do, though, for any of us, but wander through this shitty world cataloging the sad, awful things that surround us? Should be fun. I may even bring a bathing suit.
In the midst of this, I found myself considering my education, nothing to do with anything but that’s how I do things. Today I was reading some of the thoughts of one of the great thinkers of the Twentieth Century, Buckminster Fuller. He spent considerable time mocking contemporary attempts at education. Counterproductive, etc. Teaching kids to think in squares when everybody knows the real wisdom is found in tetrahedrons. He’s a trip, that’s for sure.
In a moment of supreme self-flattery, I wondered if I had intuited just the same conclusion that he had reached semi-academically: I certainly stopped trusting contemporary education, where it came to educating me, at a point fairly early in my academic career. Really, I think in my case a deep, well reasoned hostility to authority was the cause of my disengagement from conventional education. One way or the other, in the seventh grade I gave up on those people and set off to educate myself. Not in so many words, but I was genuinely, feverishly interested in so many things that the result was a great deal of reading and inquiry. Through four years of high school, I co-operated not at all, read nothing that was assigned, copied all of the homework, only half listened in class since I had to be there anyway and counted on what I’d heard to take me through the tests. I passed everything and graduated: in my class of 291 students I was number 271. I have always been proud of that. In that four years I had learned a lot more than almost anybody in my class. I’d become a good chess player too. You don’t have to believe me, I have nothing to prove to you or anybody else. Not intellectually, those facts speak for themselves.
Later I got myself a good conventional education, BA at thirty-five and JD at forty-three. What does it all mean? Nothing, I suppose.
But now Pattaya, on Ramkhamhaeng’s nickel, should be fun, good seafood, nice steamed sea bass with chili-lime flavoring, some nam-geem, mmmm. Pattaya is a zoo, I’d never go there just because I wanted to. Lots of Russian tourists staggering around drunk with horrible sunburns, a large beer bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other, pulling at girls clothes as they go, laughing grotesquely, in stupid outfits. Not my scene. Lots of desperate young women inviting you to “have a drink,” and “relax.” What else is there to do, though, for any of us, but wander through this shitty world cataloging the sad, awful things that surround us? Should be fun. I may even bring a bathing suit.
Pattaya Two: Russian TV
Russian television is funny. Like yesterday I saw a gardening show where this kind of cute older hippie woman was demonstrating how to make a vegetable garden as big as the top of a desk. She was sitting on a low stool and from that perch she could reach any spot in the garden. It was fairly elaborate too. She had dug out the rectangle and replaced about four inches of the plain dirt with good topsoil. It was very well organized. If she said how many people it would feed I’d never know it.
Now I’m watching an interview show. The interviewer looks and listens with great concentration, while the interviewee has been talking non-stop for about ten minutes now. He speaks in a monotone and he hardly moves. He has an academic black beard and wears a black t-shirt that says, “I’m out of my mind, leave a message.”
The good news is that Russians are permitted to be normal modern European humans now, none of that “Soviet Man” crap, serious all the time, no fashion, no fun, no nothing. Now, if they’re happy, they show it; models are a popular subject and they are as vacuous and beautiful as models anywhere; if there is a flood or something on the news people cry and complain, just like they should. I remember the pictures of Russians in the old days. If they looked at the camera at all it was with a mixture of fear and supreme caution. Everyone was stoic, it had been mandated by the Communist Constitution. I’m glad those guys are gone, or at least that those guys have realized that fifty percent of a lot is more than ninety percent of a little, tiny bit. Happy people work harder, and there’s more to steal. It’s the Capitalist way.
Now I’m watching an interview show. The interviewer looks and listens with great concentration, while the interviewee has been talking non-stop for about ten minutes now. He speaks in a monotone and he hardly moves. He has an academic black beard and wears a black t-shirt that says, “I’m out of my mind, leave a message.”
The good news is that Russians are permitted to be normal modern European humans now, none of that “Soviet Man” crap, serious all the time, no fashion, no fun, no nothing. Now, if they’re happy, they show it; models are a popular subject and they are as vacuous and beautiful as models anywhere; if there is a flood or something on the news people cry and complain, just like they should. I remember the pictures of Russians in the old days. If they looked at the camera at all it was with a mixture of fear and supreme caution. Everyone was stoic, it had been mandated by the Communist Constitution. I’m glad those guys are gone, or at least that those guys have realized that fifty percent of a lot is more than ninety percent of a little, tiny bit. Happy people work harder, and there’s more to steal. It’s the Capitalist way.
Pattaya Three: Kara-OK
I had another successful gig as a karaoke singer tonight. Only one song, “Wonderful Tonight,” which happened to be a favorite of one of the women professors in my department. She was a “judge” of the impromptu contest at the party on the last night of a seminar/retreat weekend for staff and professors at our university. There were a couple of other women in attendance that I am pretty sure find me interesting, and they were also mightily impressed. During the song I was handed flowers by five women and one swish guy, I feel on these occasions like Julio Inglasias on a good night.
After my Farang song I pretend sang a Thai song with the help of one of the Masters of Ceremony, in full Thai costume with makeup and everything. The whole thing was a gas, I even allowed myself to be dragged into dancing by a couple of gay guys, I hammed it up something shameless, I’m ok with stuff like that. I like having fun, I always have. Besides, I was a little lit. Just a little, a couple of cocktails beforehand and wine at the party, Penfolds, from “South-East Australia,” and Penfolds is very good too, and pretty expensive, this was Shiraz.
It was a swell party. All of the food was excellent, hotels in Pattaya can all be trusted to cook up a storm. They throw in regional stuff too, for the rubes. Isan sausage; Northern Larb. The seafood is always a treat, they had some grilled shrimp as big as Tea-Cup Chihuahuas.
The most interesting part of this “Seminar Weekend” was the casual approach to implementing the agenda. Friday’s schedule showed lots of stuff for the morning, none of which took place; we just left on the buses at two p.m. That evening dinner was superb and lasted a couple of hours in the penthouse banquet room.
Saturday’s schedule was some kind of serious exercise in the morning, it was done shallowly with flair and fun, and wild games in the afternoon. We were split into teams of about ten people. I was, of course, the only Farang at this event, a situation that I seem to relish, and that I have been in on literally dozens of occasions. It’s a little like being Helen Keller, who knows what’s really going on but I’m having fun. And Saturday night the party, wildly successful if fun was the goal.
Sunday morning’s schedule had something serious on it, which was totally ignored in favor of walking on the beach or swimming in the pool. The agenda, clearly, was just a smoke-screen to facilitate the budgeting of the money. There’s a lot to love about this country.
After my Farang song I pretend sang a Thai song with the help of one of the Masters of Ceremony, in full Thai costume with makeup and everything. The whole thing was a gas, I even allowed myself to be dragged into dancing by a couple of gay guys, I hammed it up something shameless, I’m ok with stuff like that. I like having fun, I always have. Besides, I was a little lit. Just a little, a couple of cocktails beforehand and wine at the party, Penfolds, from “South-East Australia,” and Penfolds is very good too, and pretty expensive, this was Shiraz.
It was a swell party. All of the food was excellent, hotels in Pattaya can all be trusted to cook up a storm. They throw in regional stuff too, for the rubes. Isan sausage; Northern Larb. The seafood is always a treat, they had some grilled shrimp as big as Tea-Cup Chihuahuas.
The most interesting part of this “Seminar Weekend” was the casual approach to implementing the agenda. Friday’s schedule showed lots of stuff for the morning, none of which took place; we just left on the buses at two p.m. That evening dinner was superb and lasted a couple of hours in the penthouse banquet room.
Saturday’s schedule was some kind of serious exercise in the morning, it was done shallowly with flair and fun, and wild games in the afternoon. We were split into teams of about ten people. I was, of course, the only Farang at this event, a situation that I seem to relish, and that I have been in on literally dozens of occasions. It’s a little like being Helen Keller, who knows what’s really going on but I’m having fun. And Saturday night the party, wildly successful if fun was the goal.
Sunday morning’s schedule had something serious on it, which was totally ignored in favor of walking on the beach or swimming in the pool. The agenda, clearly, was just a smoke-screen to facilitate the budgeting of the money. There’s a lot to love about this country.
Pattaya Four: Russians Have Soul
I complain about Russians, I’m sorry, it’s not really fair. On balance I think that they are very ok for White people.
For instance, I think that they have real Soul, independent of the influence of Black people. Sure they can be boorish. I’ve never been comfortable with loud talking in public. And you should see the gauche outfits they wear on vacation in Thailand. The bathing suits! So tiny! The women (some of them), so fat! The men too, with the tiny bathing suits and the big bellies. Russians are among the whitest of the Earth’s people, and after a few days in Thailand they are definitely the reddest. But they have real Soul, Russian Soul.
So it’s ok. Go ahead, be Russian. What do I know anyway?
And I am sincerely glad to have the real, natural Russian folks back in the world instead of those so-called Soviet cut-outs, robotic inventions of supremely maladjusted probably Germans, welcome back, Russians, let’s party!
For instance, I think that they have real Soul, independent of the influence of Black people. Sure they can be boorish. I’ve never been comfortable with loud talking in public. And you should see the gauche outfits they wear on vacation in Thailand. The bathing suits! So tiny! The women (some of them), so fat! The men too, with the tiny bathing suits and the big bellies. Russians are among the whitest of the Earth’s people, and after a few days in Thailand they are definitely the reddest. But they have real Soul, Russian Soul.
So it’s ok. Go ahead, be Russian. What do I know anyway?
And I am sincerely glad to have the real, natural Russian folks back in the world instead of those so-called Soviet cut-outs, robotic inventions of supremely maladjusted probably Germans, welcome back, Russians, let’s party!
Sunday, June 1, 2008
They're Back!
Just to say hello, I was away for a couple of days. Pattaya and a "seminar weekend" with staff and some prof's. I'll put up some pix and a story or two tomorrow.
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