Author Archives: bicyclemark

Nothing of world-wide substance has been discussed in the last week here at the communique. It’s no excuse, but thats what vacation adventure often brings. Tonight I sit in Caldas da Rainha, using dial-up; which is terrible, but slightly less terrible if you’re on a powerbook listening to the Sloeries, as I am. This city is one hour north of Lisbon, and it’s where moma and papa hang their hats every summer. Today I discovered the upstairs neighbors are Portuguese from Switzerland, and across the hall, from Canada. Very cool, to be surrounded by OUR PEOPLE.

Taking a bus, since the train is still diesel and slow, north of lisbon lets me see alot of the changes in both the urban and provincial landscape. As I listened to the few podcasts I could salvage from my random wifi adventures, I watched the landscape and all the surprising developments, two of which I’ll share with you:

1 – On the way out of Lisbon, even though it might have been there for years, I re-noticed a golf course in the middle of the city. My verdict: What a terribly stupid thing to have. In a city that lacks a field for children to play soccer or ULTIMATE FRISBEE, you have an enormous piece of green reserved for fat white men and the occasional token black guy. I spit in your general direction golfcourse, and the hypocracy you represent. Take those gates down and let everyone in, then I might like you.

2 – Wind Power is everywhere! All those familiar rolling green hills, now yellow from the drought, are now dotted with packs of wind generators! I for one, love this! Generators are beautiful to look at, they are so quiet and peaceful, they remind me of birds flapping their wings. There are lots of punits who argue theyre a waste of money and generate nothing, but as a portuguese ctitizen, I’m impressed and pleased. Especially when compared to the idea of running around trying to figure out where to hide nuclear waste.

those are my reviews for today, we shall tackle world events in depth, this week, I swear. I’m also headed to Porto.. home of port wine, insane soccer fans, and a shiney new metro I want to ride.

This is no joke. My ears are burning from the headlock the guy put me in. My ankle is sore from the other guy who kicked me from behind. It was completely surreal. 3 guys who I thought were just out on the town, on there way to a club or something. I was almost clear of them, and the thought hadn’t crossed my mind – Im stupid.

Don’t worry… I may look skinny and fragile.. but when push comes to shove.. Im in great shape and I’m an ex martial arts instructor… which sort of came in handy tonight. So there not a horrible ending to this one, but its all true:

First off Lisbon can be a safe city. I’m not going to become one of those conservative “cities are evil” type people. But at night there are lots of people with money going clubbing, and lots of desperate and angry people preying upon them. So I had no business trying to PODCAST a soundseeing tour through the old neighborhood with my iriver in my chest pocket and my headset mic clearly on my ear. Sure enough, I had actually walked by them earlier, a group of three guys circled back as I walked, one grabbed for head and tried to kick me, both moves caught me by surprise but I caught early and threw him back. Unfortunately at the same time, his friend kicks me in my other leg and I immediately rush to get them all on one side of me to prevent more hits from behind.

I headn’t realized at that moment they had caught my recorder which had popped out of my pocket in the struggle. In my hand was still my camera and in my pockets my money. As a sort of reflex, I prepared myself for the next rush of punches and whatever, I think I half noticed some regular people standing around doing nothing. Thats how the world is, countries are destroyed, and people stand by. People are hurt, and no one does anything — but I knew all about that.

Ow my ankle is throbbing… thats annoying.. anyway to finish the story.. they suddenly decided to run.. and I realized they had my iriver.. and I love podcasting and I wasn’t willing to let this go. I could tell they hadn’t planned this, they way one guy in the group didn’t act at all, almost surprised his friends decided to attack someone. I knew the way they would run, towards the metro, but it was far away, and I knew I could find help on the way, so I tailed them, about one block behind them.

they ducked behind some parked cars, and I spotted a group of street sweepers having a cigarette, the police were too far down the street to go there now. I didn’t want to lose these guys, so I approached the streetworkers and said “gentlemen, I was just mugged, I know the police are down the street, but the muggers are just down the street… if we approach them, I think they will panic and dump what they stole.” Some of the guys tried to look away like I was a begger. Hell I felt like a begger, but this was a call to action. And two of the old men felt that sense of “community acvitism” they followed just behind me as I walked closer to the muggers. The guys noticed me, and started running the other way… I shouted into the night air “Here I am…. I want my shit back.. !” Might sound stupid, but its all that came to mind. And wouldnt you know it, while rushing off, one of them slid my mp3 recorder onto the sidewalk. It was a little scratched up, but in tact. My headset was broken in half, but thats ok.. its worth 5 euros.

The city workers seemed satisfied. Told me to be careful and go home. My ankle is throbbing, I feel less in love with my old city, but mostly — Im disappointed in myself for not using the common sense I’m usually so proud of. (ie- – dont wander around at night recording a podcast like the world is my oyster)

For your reading pleasure, I present a collection of great comments from this week on the communique:

On my questionable opinion about the London bombings and public outry:

Not to be unorigional but I totally agree. I am saddened by the anger. I think if we recognized that we are complicit in the development of these tragedies we would be a lot closer so changing, and preventing further bombings. we live in a culture of terror and the longer we pretend that these acts can ONLY be perpetrated by insane people whose motivations cannot possibly be understood the worse things will get.

– Asia Kennan, the Deconstructionist

On me saying the Rove firing wouldn’t matter:

Dude, Rove being fired would be FUCKING HUGE.. Yeah, the pres and him are going to chity chat but whatever, that’s not what this is about at all. You’re completely missing the point.

It’s image and leverage, Bush is the born again, more moral than that Clinton evil…if his #1 guy goes down for a crime regarding leaking national security info the ramifications are huge. Any wind left in congressional republican sails would be gone, the administrative approval ratings would sink lower and congressional elections are coming up in 2006

– D-rock, King of the District.

On critical thinking:
btw, never stop questioning what motivates humanity to do the things we do….. it’s the first step to a higher understanding of ourselves and maybe gaining a higher level of ‘being’ in the bigger picture of existance in the Universe.
– Donna, from zephyr illusions

On Anne Coulter as a sexual fantasy:

I wanna know what DRock was doing at anncoulter.com….
shit, I just gave her lousy site another hit. She reminds me of a horse. A very mean, psycho horse.

– Ms Thingk, internet icon.

Shit, I just noticed this. Since its in the middle east I guess it wont make the front page.