I am Paul Gauguin -And So Can You



 It is one of the most beautiful islands in the South Pacific-Bora Bora,
after  Hawaii's-Kauai, Maui, Oahu and The Big Island-of course.

I missed three days of The 32 Day Tahitian Treasure Cruise, because of volcanic ash. So I leave tomorrow from LAX.



It's just as well I missed New Zealand- After the earthqauke,

 it must be a mess with all that angst and after-shocks

  ---and  I didn't have to sail through   the Tasmanian sea-some of the roughest waters I have ever encountered, like back in February of this year---

I learned geology the morning after the Christchurch earthquake.I learned  Australasian geography by cruising in the same hemisphere.


This was the calm before the storm,
 headed out of Milford Sound in NZ on the way to Tasmania on board Crystal Serenity


 





Australia to 17 ports in 9 countries

 

Read More

People's Republic of Santa Monica-The Left Coast



His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Integration-
Pulling a rabbit out of his hat again.

What am I on? My bike. 

All Good PPL(Your Move)

Monkeying around -
Homage to the Lord of the Rings

I biked past Chess Park, where (Pre-September 11th), my buddy Bicycle Pete PBUH who lived in his  van, frequented, along with  the Old  Radicals- John Demjanjuk look-alike- "Swiss" Pierre, the kindly Grandfather with that Nazi past, who sat all day under his rainbow umbrella giving chess "lessons" for a $1 a game;

Hired Gun for the RAND corporation Irwin, who was busy living happily ever after; Grandmaster of The Caro Cann Defense- e4 c6-Mark Rosenberg, who had no visible means of support, and was the self-proclaimed King of Chess Park, a Barney Fife public safety officer with his  trademark straw hat and bright Hawaiian shirts, who got The Urinator-one of the "houseless"  ticketed for trespassing and publicly peeing at the park on more than one occasion.

In fact Mark  value-added on the current design of Chess Park(see phto on left) ; and Persian  Architect Isaac the "Lord of The Rings". I took a victory lap for the Shah of L.A.(see above right).  

1993



Houston ,We have a Bunny!

All of these guys-as shallow and pedantic we may have been ---used to pontificate about ...renaming Santa Monica Ho Chi Minh City,' and complain and kibitz about— the conservatives, the landlords, the developers, the busy  people.

 Life Guard and Pope Of Greenwich Village with his  SP50 Zinc oxide sunscreen on his recently basel cell scrapped  nose-Dave, settled on The Peoples Republic of... Yes, it had  an-all-you-can-eat Smörgåsbord of Big Sur, NY Soho  and Beverly Hills-by-the-sea, run by the Green Party  and new age ethos Woodstock Generation ( ultra-wealthy aging hippies, environmentalists and socialists) all wrapped up in one.

 There's a little more status and a lot more quo these days--and  all the Old Radicals are nowhere to be seen. 3 days ago, actor Donald Sutherland hit a bicyclist. I wonder if it was Pete?

Read More

LAX-Los Angry Cars- to AUK New Zealand

If God had really intended men to fly, he'd make it easier to get to the airport.

Planes are like diets. I don't like being on them, especially when I am crossing the international date line. Yet after the World Cruise, I put on an extra 20 lbs. Back from London. Over to the Midwest. Then FT Lauderdale.  Now Los Angry cars...er I mean Los Angeles and the 405....headed to Auckland just nowand New Zealand-land of the long white cloud. It's more like volcanic ash because of the recent eruption in Chile. 



32 Days Tahitian Adventure- minus 3 for the choppy Tasmainian Sea I am missing because Quantas cancelled my flight



Read More

Geist Lake-Indiana

Carl Spackler: This place got a pool? Ty Webb: Pool and a pond... Pond be good for you.

Bob reminded me that when we were kids,  how  I quit my job to spend the Summer , where we learned the meaning of the word respect and memorized every line of the movie Caddyshack-watching it everyday---and still to this day. use it as a source of inspiration when traveling around: See:

The Grass IS Greener at Saint Andrews  and 

One Hand Clapping-One Lip Smiling

I also refer to the Godfather: The Geekfather In The Old Country, Sicily  and today :

Read More

USA-Indiana-Just Add Water

Split Screen- Today in the USA , last week in the UK

Caught One Today!



Read More

London-Notes From The Underground

The London Underground is  a political movement.

Conversations about the weather are the last refuge for  the unimaginative so let me de-create a bit.. and say the most serious charge which can be brought against England during my months long vacation, is June. It's been  cold and wet constantly.

There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing for people who live in "bad" weather. It rains a lot here-the rain starts with a single drop, and I haven't felt any so far today, but I am not used to all this  precip er I mean moisture- Climate is what I have been used to getting, not weather.

I was 20 the first time I  visited London!

Read More

Worthing- Gluten Free

No longer gluten free yet still wacktose intolerant

This is your brain on French Fries!

Marlboro Man---is an American Beauty---Look Closer. Cowboy French Fries! from the most powerful---and in some quarters, most detested---brand image of the century,


The United States of unconscious eating where the portions are too small and there is never enough--It is easier to change a man's religion than -his diet. The default mode of eating-the Standard American Diet  S.A.D- of incredible sumptuous meals, a nautical buffet of seeing food and eating it--onboard the World Cruise-- was wacky enough to through off my entire digestive  system.

After binging out on one last "Fish and Chips" for cultural reasons,(it is  after all the United Kingdom),  I am back on the path to desludging my liver, and the gallbladder cleanse- thanks to raw fruit and vegetable juices-a plant based living foods diet, I am re-booting my metabolism.

I have been juicing for about two weeks-There's a saying among vegetarians, "Eat your colors". Well, I am drinking my colors too. Carrot, Celery,Apple, Cucumber, Ginger and Cantaloupe Juices!

Raw foods and fresh juices are the real fast food: because it isn't about how quickly food can get into your mouth, but how fast the body can digest it, and extract the goodness and get rid of the waste. We don’t need our food dead, sick or wounded. We need it alive. Buy a juicer!

Read More

Brighton Beach-UK- Rocks!

Brighton Beach

June is the start of Summer, but as I look out into the cool waters of the English channel, there's no way I am going swimming today  It's 4 seasons in 1day. You don't get climate here, you get weather, and you there's no such thing as  bad weather just bad clothing.

A lot of places claim to be unique. This one really is. Reminds me of Coney Island,USA  and New York New York---but Brighton Beach is nothing like its sandy counterpart.

Same time last year in Norway June  2, 2010

Here, you crunch along the seaside instead of walking on it—it’s pebbles all the way.


When the going was good...
...and you could leave no stone unturned
If you smell something burning, it is my future as a travel writer  going up in smoke-  the future of travel blogging  just ain't what it used to be. Sure, everything is edible somewhere(dogs, cats and rats come to mind), and I certainly visited enough inhospitable  and  exotic locations from Angkor Wat to The  Philippiness; but they're all stunts compared to the elevated sense of otherworldliness  given  by Melville, Hemingway, Conrad, Kipling and  of course Basho's nomadic pursuits, which I emulate in my own Scandinavian  version of Narrow Road to The Interior

 In 2011,  the  subject matter  is just too pedestrian, just a round-trip ticket and convenient 24 hours away.

Same Hat today as last year

Although I write  about these places like a news story, In fact, I am less surprised than I  care to admit when I see "faraway" up close. My touch and go, hit it and quit it ports of call, were actually more spiritual and mental moments than physical events. The  conclusion: No Noose is good news. The sailing life comes down to three things -- everything changes; everything is connected; pay attention.


Some day I will look back at  posting  to Facebook and Blogger, feel uncomfortable and change the subject. Like drunk dialing friends, blogging  often leaves  me in a vegetative stupor--a  mouse potato in suspended animation-because social media  is somewhere else — the click and mortar-in the cloud, in the ether, worlds apart from the bricks and mortar-RL Real Life. For sure, but, more than that, the obligation to come back with something new, to report back on landscape, people, cultures, languages, foods, we'd never heard of—is getting harder each time.
 I inhale a whiff of the post mortem...shucks, Alexander the Great was said to have wept when he realized he had no more worlds to conquer. The world is flat.

Read More